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I return to the main room, manage to doze a little. At one point, a noise wakes me and I raise my head and look hopefully in the direction of the door. But no one comes walking across the room toward me and suddenly I’m furious, furious that they think they can starve me.
I push myself from the mattress, make my way blindly to the door.
“I’m hungry!” I yell. “I need food!” I find the handle, rattle it. “Did you hear me?” I thump on the door with my fists. “I’m hungry!”
I stop, put my ear to the door, hoping to hear someone approaching. But there’s nothing. I thump on the door again. “Did you hear me? I need food!”
“Shut up!”
The high-pitched scream transcends the sound of my thumping. I stop, my fist halfway to the wall, paralyzed by the violence in the scream. For a moment, I think it’s the man who caught me when I tried to escape, that he’s in the hallway outside, yelling at me to stop. Then, I realize—it came from below. Ned. He’s heard me hammering on the door.
I sink to the ground, my eyes smarting with tears of frustration and my leg knocks against something. I reach out, it’s a tray. Relief floods through me; they must have brought it while I was asleep. I grope clumsily for food, find a sandwich, and begin to eat, searching at the same time for the bar of chocolate. But there’s nothing else, not even a piece of fruit.
I finish my sandwich, sit with my back against the wall, thinking about the tray left just inside the door. No more chocolate or fruit. No more human contact. That is going to be the hardest to bear. And what about Ned? He knows where I am now, he knows I’m being kept in a room somewhere above him. Which means he can invade my space whenever he wants.
Better for me to be quiet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
PAST
On Thursday, our last day in Vegas, Ned took the afternoon off. We went out for lunch, and he ordered yet more champagne to celebrate both my birthday and Paul Martin finally agreeing to an interview forExclusives.We’d had to stay longer than Ned had intended to secure it; by the time we flew out the next day, we would have been gone for six days.
“Justine is going to be thrilled,” I said, when Ned told me. “Have you told her yet?”
“No, because I want to be able to see her face. So, no letting the cat out of the bag.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “I bet you can’t wait to get back.”
He drained his glass. “Actually, no. I wish I could stay here forever.”
“Why?”
He twirled the stem of the flute between his finger and thumb, a habit of his. “Because my parents are pressuring me to marry a girl that I don’t want to marry. They’ve invited her and her parents to stay next weekend and they’re expecting me to propose to her. She’s a nice girl, I’ve known her for years. But I’m not going to marry her, even for the sake of the Hawthorpe Foundation.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He signaled to the waiter, who brought over the red wine that Ned had asked him to decant into a carafe.
“She’s Isobel Algerson, Steve Algerson’s daughter,” Ned explained as the waiter poured a little wine into his glass. “He and my father are great friends, and Steve has donated millions to the foundation. My mother and Priscilla Algerson are best friends, their son, Matt, is my best friend, so our marriage would be a win-win situation for everyone.” He took his glass, breathed the scent of the wine in through his nose, then nodded to the waiter. “Except me,” he added, as the waiter filled our glasses.
I smiled my thanks to the waiter. “How does Isobel feel about you? If she doesn’t want to marry you, that would make everything alright, wouldn’t it?”
“Unfortunately, she’s been told from an early age that I’m her destiny.” He raised his glass toward me. “Here’s to my marriage.”
We clinked our glasses together.
“But nobody can force you to marry her,” I said.
He gave a grim laugh. “Have you met my father? I’m already a huge disappointment to him because of the magazine, and to my mother, because I’m still unmarried at thirty-three.”
“Don’t you want to get married?”
“Yes, but not to Isobel Algerson. She’s not the sort of girl I want to marry.”
“What sort of girl do you want to marry?”
“Someone my parents would disapprove of, just to annoy them and get them off my back. That’s why my father is so against the magazine. He’s afraid I’m going to end up marrying a pop star or actress, which wouldn’t be in keeping with the image he wishes to portray for his precious foundation. He thinks that everyone I meet is a drug user, and he has told me that my future wife can’t have any history with regard to drugs.” He gave a dry laugh. “It makes Isobel the perfect wife for me. Not only has she never touched drugs, but she also works as a volunteerfor an addiction and mental health charity.” He looked at me. “Have you ever used drugs?”
