AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When had they been planning to tell me the truth?
I kept shifting my feet, somewhat beyond my control, and eventually I leaned forward so I could grab the ankle strap of one of the shoes and started fidgeting with it.
As I finally released the buckle and began to wiggle my foot back and forth to get it out, the car filled with a noise I didn’t immediately recognise as Devin’s voice. “Do not take your shoes off. I know you were raised better than the majority of young women in this town who act like they’re still sixteen and could be forgiven for behaving like their entire life is one constant barn dance in which they may take their shoes off at will.”
I’d gotten something closer to what I recognised as actual emotion from him by trying to remove my shoes than by any of my previous plays. It actually scared me. “Are you afraid the foot fetish you’ve spent so much of your fortune in therapy for is going to go rogue if I take my shoes off?”
Devin’s grunt sounded mostly repulsed. Again, more of a reaction than I’d gotten from almost anything else so far.
I knew the guy was dangerous when he was wearing absolutely no emotion at all, and that should be enough reason for me to avoid getting him visibly fired up. But the itch to do just that was growing inside me, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to control it if I stuck around Devin much longer. Seriously speaking I didn’t think the Stockholm was supposed to set in this soon, and not when I had reasonable confidence of being able to get away from him. Not that Stockholm was supposed to cover behaving in a way that the kidnapper would reasonably have considered fighting against him.
This was apparently the effect once I got used to having to tangle with a man like him at all, and it seemed like bad news for me that was coming from myself this time—but that was a state of affairs I was far more used to than everything else that was happening right now.
Devin spoke up himself as we made it to the outskirts of the city. “I’m feeling even better about the choice of shoes now.”
I couldn’t help responding. “What, because if you can just keep me from taking them off, they’ll keep me from being able to run away from you as well?”
“Exactly,” said Devin with clear satisfaction.
Right then, something in me cracked. I had a feeling it was partially due to stress and lack of sleep, and I didn’t care: I decided I was going to tell someone at this restaurant that Devin had taken me against my will. I wasn’t going to go to the point of pressing charges or anything—I had a feeling Devin was known to the police anyway and I wouldn’t get far if I tried. But calling some low-level cops on him, embarrassing him in a crowd, was exactly what he deserved.
A little spike of fear tried to tell me this was a terrible idea, dragging other people into our situation. It was bound to raise his ire beyond even attempting to take off my shoes. But what was he going to do to me, anyway? Even for someone like him, I was bound to become a massive inconvenience dead, and it seemed like Devin’s complicated ethics would keep him from hurting me without offering a warning first. So why the hell not… well, raise some hell?
Chapter Six
I couldn’t even manage to get out of Devin’s car in those stupid heels, not without potentially exposing myself to the wider audience of the area in which we had parked. Devin had to step in front of me and draw me out holding onto both of my hands. Then I took one step and teetered until he tucked my arm around his and led me off like a walking doll. I felt ridiculous, and seeing other suited men, sometimes also maneuvering women, glancing at us as we drew close to the entrance and trying to meet Devin’s eye with their knowing smirks made me feel horrendously conspicuous.
I actually fell over in the elevator on the way up to the restaurant. There was one elderly woman riding up with us, who clutched her handbag closer to her chest and squinted down at me with this look of I know you’re drunk right now.
I would have let her know I was currently kidnapped so the disapproval could be redirected to where it rightfully belonged, but a woman like that seemed liable to blame me for being kidnapped in the first place. So I clawed myself back to my feet with Devin’s help, and stayed close to him when we walked out onto a high floor of the building, leaving behind the head-shaking old bitch.
It took about ten steps down the hallway we’d entered into for me to realise there was probably no restaurant here, just the many numbered doors of a hotel floor.
“Um… Devin?” I could barely look at him. There was a danger in this situation I somehow hadn’t felt when we were in the cabin, with plenty of space around. Locked in a hotel room with him, there would be only one exit he could easily keep me away from, no chance of, say, smashing a window this far up unless I was determined to end it all. Perhaps he’d decided on the drive here that the only way to deal with me was to give me a taste of what I would receive if I agreed to be his wife. And would anyone care if they heard faint screaming coming from a hotel room?
Suddenly nothing would have made me happier than to see that judgemental bitch from the elevator again.
Devin suddenly stopped in the middle of the hallway, took a step back, and gripped my chin between a thumb and forefinger to turn my face up to his. His expression revealed a disgust even greater than any he’d shown until now. “Julia, I am not planning to drag you into my room here and rape you. Jesus. I need to pick up a new shirt before we go to dinner. This is a relatively relaxed establishment, and if I take my jacket off during the meal I’m going to throw everyone into a panic.”
He held up his other arm so his jacket sleeve slipped down to expose his shirt sleeve. The one stained with the blood of the guy who had gotten on his bad side by trying to assault me… and here I was assuming he was going to do the same.
This was the new most incensed I’d seen Devin, but he thrust it down fast and offered me his arm again. “Let’s hurry. Our reservation is for ten minutes from now.”
I was still hesitant as Devin led me into a room and locked the door behind us, but I thought it was mostly because there was a certain novelty to being invited into a space that was actually occupied by a man like that, as opposed to some place he’d hired for the purpose of housing his captive. I peered around from my position pressed up against the door leading out, trying to spot anything interesting on show, but the room from there looked clean as if Devin had just moved in.
Housekeeping, of course. “So where do you really live?” I asked him. “You needn’t be afraid I’m going to send someone around to kidnap you if you tell me.”
I didn’t get the laugh out of him I’d been hoping for. “This is where I live right now. I haven’t bought a house of my own yet, I like being able to choose what my address is on any given day. I get good rates in the hotels around here and several people who offer me the use of their holiday rentals during quiet seasons, too.”
He cocked his head at me and added, “Of course, if we were to marry I would buy a house for you. Can’t expect a wife to pack up every other week and move to a new place.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I was trying to get at,” I muttered, though now he’d said it I couldn’t shake the thought of it out of my head. He would just go out and buy a house for me… would he allow me to decorate as well? I didn’t know if the prospect excited or disturbed me.
Devin ducked around the corner and came back with a white shirt on a hanger, its lines so neat he must have ironed it before he left to organise my kidnapping. But he’d been in fresh clothes when I got up that morning and somehow I doubted he’d left me alone with the hired help overnight, which meant… did he have all his shirts ironed and ready to go at a moment’s notice? Was that a service the hotel could provide? The more I learned about this man, the deeper down the mysteries seemed to go.
Devin shrugged his jacket off, and the next thing I knew my hands were coming up to catch it as it flew in my direction. He even managed to throw clothes elegantly. “I’m not your clothes horse, you know,” I said, holding the jacket up with one hand an
d smoothing it with the other. Devin tilted his head sideways at me like he couldn’t work out what I was even objecting to, and then moved his hands to his collar. He loosened his tie in a movement that was pretty smooth compared to all the trouble my dad always had doing the same thing, and once it was hanging out of the way he started undoing buttons.
