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“I’m sorry. I didn’t have a chance to grab any of your clothes,” he says, helping me pull the enormous T-shirt over my head. “Luckily, Anton stashed a change of clothes in the back. Here, you can put on these pants, too.” He guides my trembling feet into a pair of men’s black jeans, helps me put on a pair of black socks, and removes the blanket altogether, throwing it on the table next to us.
Like the T-shirt, the jeans are huge on me, but there is a belt inside the loops, and Peter tightens it around my hips, knotting it at the front like a tie before rolling up the pant legs.
“There,” he says, eyeing his handiwork with satisfaction. “That should suffice for the flight, and then I’ll get you a brand-new wardrobe.”
I close my eyes, shutting him out. I can’t bear to look at his exotically handsome features, can’t tolerate the warmth in those steel-gray eyes. It’s all a lie, an illusion. He doesn’t care for me, not really. Obsession is not love, and that’s what he feels for me: a dark, terrible obsession that ruins and destroys.
That has already destroyed my life in so many ways.
I hear him sigh before his big hands wrap around my cold palms.
“Sara…” His deep, softly accented voice feels like a caress over my skin. “We’ll make it work, ptichka, I promise. It won’t be as bad as you’re imagining. Now tell me… do you want to call your parents, explain everything to them?”
My parents? Startled, I open my eyes to gape at him. Then I realize he mentioned this before, only I didn’t register it. “You’re letting me call my parents?”
My captor nods, a small smile curving his sculpted lips as he remains crouched in front of me, his hands gently clasping mine. “Of course. I know you don’t want them to worry, with your dad’s heart and all.”
Oh God. My dad’s heart. My headache intensifies at the reminder. At eighty-seven, my dad is remarkably healthy for his age, but he had a triple bypass surgery a few years back and has to avoid stress. And I can’t imagine anything more stressful than— “Do you think the FBI spoke to them already?” I gasp in sudden horror. “Did they tell my parents I was kidnapped?”
“I doubt they would’ve had the time.” Peter squeezes my hands reassuringly, then releases them and rises to his feet. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a smartphone and hands it to me. “Call them, so you can give them your version of the story first.”
“My version of the story? And what version is that?” The phone feels like a brick in my hand, its weight magnified by the knowledge that if I say the wrong thing, I could literally kill my dad. “What can I tell them that will make this in any way okay?”
My tone is caustic, but my question is genuine. I can’t imagine what I can say to lessen my parents’ panic over my disappearance, how I can explain what the FBI is about to tell them—especially since I don’t know how much the agents will reveal.
The plane chooses that moment to hit a pocket of turbulence, and Peter sits down next to me. “Tell them you met a man… a man you fell in love with.” He covers my knee with his warm palm, his metallic gaze mesmerizing in its intensity. “Tell them that for the first time in your life, you decided to do something crazy and irresponsible. That you’re fine, but for the next few weeks, you’ll be traveling around the world with your lover.”
“The next few weeks?” A wild hope blooms inside me. “Are you saying that—”
“No. You won’t be back in a few weeks. But they don’t need to know that yet.”
The hope withers and dies, the crushing despair returning. “I’ll never see them again, will I?”
“You will.” His hand squeezes my knee. “At some point, when it’s safe.”
“And when will that be?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out.”
“We?” A bitter laugh escapes my throat. “Are you under the impression that this is some kind of partnership? That we kidnapped me together?”
Peter’s gaze hardens. “It can be a partnership, Sara. If you want it to be.”
“Oh, really?” I push his hand off my knee. “Then turn this fucking plane around, partner. I want to go home.”
“That’s impossible, and you know that.” His bristle-darkened jaw flexes.
“Is it? Why? Because you love to fuck me? Or because you fucking love me?” My voice rises as I jump to my feet, hands balled at my sides. I can see his men in the seats behind us, their faces stony as they stare out the window, pretending not to listen, but I don’t care. I’m past embarrassment, past shame; all I feel is rage.
