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I felt it in the heaviness of my hair and the slight tackiness to my skin. At least I wasn’t cold anymore. I preferred the tropics. My internal thermostat was better suited for heat than for cold.
Knowing I must be close to the equator didn’t help much. I could be in any Asian, Indonesian, or Polynesian country.
No one spoke to give away a language or accent. No one blatantly said, “Hello, Eleanor. Welcome to such and such. We’re sorry about the upheaval of your life. How about we put you on a plane and return you to your boyfriend straight away?”
Shoving away such stupid thoughts, I’d stayed frozen as he’d rested on his haunches, opened a bag with syringes, scalpels, and other sterilized equipment all wrapped in individual packets, and proceeded to localize an area of my throat, nick my skin with a wicked-looking blade, and pull the tracker free with a pair of tweezers.
I hadn’t fought him.
I didn’t make his job difficult.
I’d wanted that nasty thing removed, and he’d done it.
I even smiled in thanks as he dropped the rice-shaped deceive onto the floor and crushed it beneath his shiny black shoe.
He didn’t stitch my wound closed, just applied some sort of adhesive, pressed a small bandage over it, then turned his attention to the rope burn around my throat and wrists, the bruise on my temple, the freshly oozing tattoo, and raised his eyebrow expectantly, asking universally, even if we didn’t speak the same language, if I had any other ails.
I’d wanted to tell him to give me his cell phone. To ask him to free me. But he stood when I didn’t point at other injuries and began to pack up his tricks. The salve he’d put on my bruises and the cream he’d put on my tattoo all went back into the depths of his bag and vanished behind its zipper.
The two bodyguards stayed close beside me, removing any hope that I might be able to bolt with this young doctor and hop on the closest plane home.
Home…
Will I ever see it again?
I’d asked that far too many times as I’d been ushered from the hangar, shoved onto the silver helicopter, and endured a stern-faced pilot strapping me into a five-point harness.
Before I could wriggle free, the engine started, the clouds dropped strings from the heavens, tied us tight, and ripped us from the ground in one swift pull. We’d left behind one destination for another, swooping out to sea just as the sky lightened with a new day.
The sunrise had been spectacular.
All tangerines and apricots bathed in golden threads as the sun stretched and yawned.
It was no longer dawn.
The sun had reclaimed its place in the sky and blinded out the stars, giving me the final glittering view of my new home.
How cruel that my imprisonment was prettier than any dream I could imagine. How unfair that my cage was the Garden of Eden. A Shangri-La dripping in promise and protection, hiding the sinister snakes and sin at its core.
My bones rattled as the helicopter finally stopped teasing with descent and landed slightly too hard on the helipad.
I’d arrived.
Chapter Six
I WAS LATE TO my own welcome party.
I was the host and owner, the life-giver and keeper of the new goddess who’d just stepped onto my shores, and I’d missed her touchdown.
Shit.
Slipping my arms into my silk-cashmere blazer, I strode down the sandy lane linking my office to the jetty where every conquest and guest was processed. Unlike my high-paying guests, my inspection would last longer than just a stare into their eyes and quick appraisal of their personality. With guests, I’d already done my research. Background checks and online sleuthing yielded enough to make a calculated guess that I could weed out the behaved from the reckless.
But a new goddess?
I knew nothing.
I want to know everything.
Buttoning a silver engraved button, I smoothed out my graphite suit and stepped into the sunlight just as the girl was unbuckled from the helicopter and given a hand to help her climb the three steps down.
She didn’t recoil from the courteous offer of help. She didn’t screech or scratch or act stupid in any way. Instead, she held her head high, inserted her hand into the staff member’s waiting below, and allowed him to guide her down the jetty bobbing on the gentle waves caused by the landing as he escorted her all the way to me.
I didn’t move, studying her every step.
She was taller than some of my other employees. She was willowy, but her legs weren’t weak, skinny things. They were toned with flickers of muscle beneath alabaster skin. Even barefoot, she moved with assurance and a liquid type of sensuality.
She didn’t stumble or shy away, even when she looked up to my palm tree-surrounded podium and caught my gaze. Her full lips parted as she inhaled—the only sign of nerves—before gritting her teeth and arching her chin higher.
