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“She wasn't what I expected, you know. I would have thought you'd be more attracted to someone like Ingrid. Beautiful. Built. Sophisticated. I didn't think you would have fallen for someone who looks barely old enough to be out of school, with no figure to speak of and too much naiveté to be particularly interesting.”
Daniel's fists tightened at the dismissive—and so very inadequate—summary of B.J.'s charms. “Yes, well, there's no accounting for taste,” he managed to say lightly. “Especially when there's enough money involved.”
“Mmm. I found your devotion to your bride heart-warming. And quite useful. It never occurred to me before that she could be a very handy tool for me to insure that you would give me no problems during our…negotiations.”
Daniel grunted impatiently. “My wife has nothing to do with our business. And I've given you no reason to distrust me. You don't need to convince me to cooperate—I've been doing so all along. So let's get on with it.”
“But you see, I'm the type of man who takes advantage of every fortuitous development when it comes to business,” Drake murmured. “The trait has been very useful to me in the past. And I think you should know that I've arranged a little insurance so that you won't try to pull off anything foolish as we conclude our dealings. I'm sure you had no such scheme in mind, but just in case…”
“What the hell are you talking about, Drake?”
“Your wife, of course. Don't worry, she's perfectly safe. And she'll remain that way as long as you continue to cooperate. Once I've been assured that everything is proceeding as planned, you will be reunited with her.”
Daniel started to rise. “What have you done?”
“You'll want to sit back down, Mr. Andreas,” Bernard advised from his usual position at the back of Drake's conference room. His hand was already inside his jacket.
A squarely built man with cold eyes and a hard smile tapped on the door and entered the room just then. “Everything's secured, Mr. Drake.”
“Thank you, Paul.” Drake looked at Daniel with an unmistakable look of self-satisfaction. “Paul has taken your wife to a safe location. At least, safe for now. So…with that out of the way, shall we proceed?”
A surge of hatred coursed through Daniel with enough force to leave him momentarily speechless. Hatred for Drake, who had dared to threaten B.J. And for himself, for putting her in this position in the first place.
He had been so careless. So arrogant. So insufferably certain that he had taken every step to keep her safe, even as he had used her as ruthlessly as Drake was doing now. She had made a handy accomplice in his cover—and she had played her part so convincingly that Drake had bought it even more convincingly than Daniel had predicted he would.
He should have foreseen what Drake would do if a convenient innocent crossed his path.
“Damn you, Drake, what have you done with her?” he demanded in a roar, surging out of his chair with a reckless disregard for Bernard and his ever-present weapon. “Where is my wife?”
It took both Bernard and the newcomer to wrestle Daniel back into his chair.
Drake simply looked on with cool amusement. He ended the struggle with a few well-selected words. “I said she would be safe as long as you cooperate, Daniel. I would hardly call this cooperation.”
Daniel went still in the chair.
“Much better,” Drake assured him, nodding to his employees to release him. They did so but remained poised close by.
Drake reached for the file in front of him again, as though they were still engaged in business as usual. “Shall we get back to it? And by the way, Daniel, you would really be wasting your breath to try to convince me again that you aren't in love with B.J. It's really very touching, isn't it, Bernard?”
Bernard laughed.
Chapter Thirteen
“Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!” With each muttered word, B.J. hit herself in the forehead. The last time she hit hard enough to make her ears ring a little, but she didn't care. She had never been angrier with herself.
She couldn't believe she had just blithely walked into a trap. Hadn't even considered the possibility that she should be on her guard. Daniel had told her he was sending someone for her, and she had just naively followed the first guy who'd come along.
The man she'd assumed had been sent by Daniel had instead locked her in a storage room. According to her watch almost half an hour had passed since, though it felt like much longer.
Glaring at the cases of toilet paper, facial tissues and paper towels stacked around her, she kicked the locked door. The only thing that accomplished was to hurt her big toe, which was left unprotected by her sandals. Cursing herself again, she hobbled furiously around the roughly eight-by-eight room, trying to come up with a plan for escape.
Since she couldn't figure out any way to break through a solidly bolted door with a roll of toilet paper, she sank to the floor and rested her forehead on her up-drawn knees. She didn't know why she was here. The man who had pushed her inside and locked the door behind her hadn't stayed around long enough to answer any questions.
She couldn't help remembering the things she had overheard Daniel saying into his cell phone the night before. He had told someone to get her out of the way—and he'd added that he didn't really care about the details.
Was this his idea of keeping her safe? Out of the way?
