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That was going to change. If she survived, she reminded herself. Despite the fact that her kidnappers had assured her that they weren’t going to harm her, they were still kidnappers, and she doubted she could take them at their word.
“Are we going to the Berkshires?” she blurted out when she realized that they’d passed Springfield and seemed to be on the road to Stockbridge. She had connections in Stockbridge, but again, she was so helpless she didn’t know if she could recognize one of their houses without being driven to it.
Her captors did not reply, but after almost three hours of driving, they pulled up the lane of an old country estate in the heart of the picturesque countryside. The rolling hills were classic Americana, something out of a Norman Rockwell painting—quite literally because the famous painter had grown up in the Berkshires and his former studio resided in one of the towns.
The estate they were entering was lavishly decorated for Thanksgiving. Bianca couldn’t help but think of Elias, and how she had been sure he’d been angling for her to meet his parents over the Thanksgiving weekend. Or at least that was the lie he wanted her to believe in order to gain her trust to spy on her family.
And yet, despite what he’d done, and despite the fact that Cassiel believed their whole relationship was a ploy to get information on the Loring family, Bianca couldn’t get herself to believe that Elias had faked his feelings. Or maybe that’s what she needed to believe because if he had been faking it all this time, she would never trust her ability to judge another person’s feelings ever again.
They pulled around the circular drive. The driver let her out of the back and the guy who had been in the passenger seat came around so that the two of them were on either side of her while they walked her inside. They looked like her escorts and not her captors. They walked her right through the front door.
The old manor house had been redone several times and decorated professionally. The decorator had apparently taken every single one of Martha Stewart’s tips about festooning your Hamptons-style house to the height of the holiday season. The parquet floors shined, the walls were draped in orange and yellow garlands of faux fall leaves, and the few pieces of furniture that were there, conspicuouslynotcluttering up the open plan layout, were covered in weird gourds.
Bianca was led into a library that had been painted all white and the books were chosen—not for their literary worth—but the color of their covers so that the bookshelves looked like a painter’s swatch in harmoniously gradient shades of the same color palate.
She lowered herself onto a couch that was wrong for the room. The seat was too deep and she found herself having to perch on the edge because if she tried to rest her back on it, she was basically lying down, or if she scooted back so she could sit up straight, her legs were sticking out in front of her like she was a little kid sitting at the grown-up table. It was a lounging couch that had no business in a place where people who didn’t know each other were supposed to sit and talk with their feet on the floor. Everything about this place was to look a certain way. It wasn’t about function. It was all for show.
Ben Goh came bursting in as she was trying to find a comfortable way to sit, and she happily stood to face him.
“Bianca Loring!” he said in a leering, teasing way. Like this was some social call and they were supposed to banter back and forth.
She’d had it. She was emotionally spent and scared out of her mind and there was no way she was going to play this guy’s game of cat and mouse.
“Why do you always say my full name?” she asked, rather than say the obvious and ask why he brought her here. He’d get to that soon, anyway.
“Huh,” he said, probably a little thrown that she wasn’t behaving more like a mouse. “Because you’re Bianca Loring. The beautiful heiress. The one everyone wants or wants to be.”
“Why are you so obsessed with my family?” she asked. “You know,that’swhy I never hung out with you? All you were interested in was my last name. You were never interested in being friends with me as a person.”
“That’s true. Also, I just really wanted to fuck you,” he said casually. “I didn’t think you did Asians though, so imagine my surprise when I saw you with Elias Copeland.”
“Get to the point,” she said. The mention of Elias didn’t make her sad anymore. It made her furious.
Ben walked around her a bit, his arms crossed and one of his thumbs running over his lower lip like he was assessing a painting. He raised a pointer finger and wagged it about like he just figured something out.
“But maybe it’s not the Asian thing that did it for you,” he said, coming to a stop and staring at her. “Maybe you’re into Feds.”
What he said wasn’t overtly threatening, but again, like that time in the Chipped Mug, she felt a threat in his words.
“Didn’t think I’d find out he was a Fed, huh?” He smirked at her like he was some mastermind. “If he was white, I probably wouldn’t have looked into him, but the fact that I saw this guy speakingMandarinwith aSingaporeaccent, dating BiancaLoring!” He made a “gah” sound, feigning amazement. Then his face changed into a look of loathing. “Is it the badge or the gun that does it for you?”
“Ben? Is there a reason you kidnapped me?” she asked, keeping her voice calm even though her face was hot and probably bright red with anger.
“Kidnapped?Whaaat?” he said, touching a hand to his chest as if he were offended. “You’re here to hang out. We’re old friends, aren’t we?”
“Like you said. We were never friends.”
He glared at her balefully. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “You’re going to stay here with me for a few days. Thanksgiving in the Berkshires with your old pal Ben. And while you stay here, your family is going to let your boyfriend know that the Lorings think he should find someone else to investigate.”
Bianca was already shaking her head. “They’ll never do that.”
“They should because I’m the nice guy here. You don’t want to meet my friends in Singapore.”
“Your bosses, you mean?” she asked, needling him. She knew Ben was the type of guy who liked to pretend he was the most important person in the room.
It worked. His eyes flashed with a hint of anger before he got himself back together again. “This doesn’t have to be a bad experience for anyone. If your brothers and your boyfriend cooperate.”
“He isn’t my boyfriend.”
