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Pacing back and forth, I knew in my heart that wasn’t true. Couldn’t be. No way. What we’d shared last night was real. His hatred for his brother was also real. This wasn’t some long-game ploy to hand me over to Petre.
I prayed it wasn’t, anyway.
So the other option was that he’d left me, planning to be gone just briefly, but had gotten roped into something. He wasn’t a part of his family’s business; I knew that much. So probably it was a card game, as I’d feared. Envisioning some smoke-filled room with five burly guys ruining their families, one stack of chips at a time, I huffed and stamped on the floor, even as I considered the last—and worst—possibility.
Standing there in such luxurious surroundings, I almost couldn’t bring myself to face it. But it had to be thought through. It could have happened to him. Something terrible. A riding accident, an avalanche, some twisted crime-family vendetta that had ended up with him dead in an icy ravine somewhere, bleeding and alone.
The thought of that, of his being injured or worse, rattled me right down to my very core. I let my head drop. Gambler though he was, inconsiderate though he might be, I had to face the truth that I wanted him; I was drawn to him. I had to have him. And thinking back to last night made my heart actually throb.
Heavy footsteps made my heart shoot into my throat, wondering if the men from earlier had returned and were possibly on their way to find me and turf me out into the cold as a squatter. But what could I do except exactly the same as I’d done before? I dove for the wardrobe and slipped inside.
And I didn’t have to wait long.
“Daniel?” Vasile’s powerful voice carried to me before I saw the door flung wide, his muscle-bound form filling the doorway. “Valeria?” He lowered his voice as he added, almost to himself, “Where the hell are they?”
My heart soared at seeing him, and I flung the wardrobe door wide, seeing his surprise as I spilled out into the room and flung my arms around him. Despite everything, I was ecstatic at seeing him alive and well.
“Aren’t you a little old for hiding in wardrobes?” he asked, holding me by the shoulders.
“I’m so glad you’re not dead in a ravine,” I told him, and a lop-sided grin spread over his face.
“Why would I be…? Where’s Daniel?”
“I have no idea who that is,” I told him. “All I know is, I woke up here, all alone and with nothing to eat, and then there were two strange men and—”
“Two strange men? Who were they?” His eyes narrowed in concern. “I left Daniel here to take care of you, he should have given you anything you asked for. And I left a note, there on the mantel. Did you not see it?”
“Oh…” I suddenly remembered what had happened. “When the men came in I wasn’t dressed, so I hid in the wardrobe. As I went by the fireplace, there was a paper that drifted down and was sucked in by the heat…”
He huffed. “Who were these men? Did they hurt you?”
I shook my head. “They came in, they were arguing about the house and the property and…I don’t know. He called him something like Lord Burlington.”
“Barrington?” His features darkened. “He was here?” Vasile started checking around the room, as if something might be missing, but finding nothing, he took me by the arm and led us from the room. “Daniel?” He shouted. “Where are you, man?”
“So Daniel was supposed to bring me anything I needed?”
“Yes,” Vasile said distractedly as he led us through the interior of the house, calling out to Daniel. “I left you instructions in the note how to find him and that I’d return in a few hours.”
“I went looking for food, but…Barrington, he said he was leaving you a message before he left. He destroyed the kitchen and any food that was there.”
“What? Barrington, that fucker. He’s harmless, really, but a terribly sore loser. Daniel, are you here?” His voice echoed through the hall.
There was a knocking sound from a closet as we passed, and Vasile stopped short.
“In here, my—Vasile,” came a muffled voice from the closet.
Vasile glanced around, and grabbed the nearest thing—a sword held by an empty suit of armor—and started bashing at the lock with it. It wasn’t quite as elegant as my own method of getting past locks, but it was effective. A few moments later, he had the door open and a disheveled man, who I recognized as the kinder looking one from earlier, almost spilled out into the hall.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Daniel, what the fuck? I left you with specific instructions to—”
“I’m sorry. I was trying to make him leave. When I grabbed his arm to turn him back toward the front entry, he spun around and slammed me in the head with...I’m not sure what.” The man rubbed the side of his head. “I was dazed and I woke up in there, with the door locked.”
