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A small nuclear explosion of rage detonates inside me. Yes, I miss Joshua. Yes, I want to see him, but not by being kidnapped. Again.
I grab my pepper spray.
The taxi door opens, and Joshua is standing there, looming over me, blotting out the sun. That handsome face is staring down at me, those cool blue eyes capturing my gaze. My treacherous heart starts thudding in my chest, and for just a moment, I want to leap into his arms and pull him to me, before I remember that he’s about to drag me off somewhere against my will and steal all my choices. With the help of the fucking cab driver.
Furious, I stick my pepper spray into the front seat and press the button before I lunge out of the car. My eyes sting and water a little bit, but the taxi driver got the full blast. He lets out a shrill scream, throwing open his door and staggering out onto the pavement.
Joshua grabs my arm tightly as he marches me over to a limo that’s idling a few feet away. I swing the pepper spray toward him, and he snatches it from my hand.
“If you could stop injuring my employees, that would be nice,” he says coolly, maneuvering me into the back seat of the limo with more force than is strictly necessary. He reaches over and pulls the door shut, and the lock clicks into place.
Is he kidding me?
“If you could stop stalking me and kidnapping me, I wouldn’t have to!” I yell at him. “What the hell was that back at the restaurant, by the way?”
“You were being harassed. My employee took appropriate measures.” A big man in a dark suit is taking my suitcases from the trunk of the cab and carrying them toward the limo.
“Harassed?” I say angrily. “Bullshit! A man came up and tried to flirt with me because he saw me sitting with a bunch of women and assumed I was single, and I politely declined because I told him I had just gotten out of areally bad relationship, and he immediately backed off. And your employee beat the hell out of him. He had no right.”
“He had every right!” Joshua’s face twists into something truly frightening, and his anger burns the air like heat from a radiator. “If I’d been there, I would have killed him!”
Joshua’s employee puts my suitcases in the front seat, and climbs in. The limo starts moving, pulling out of the parking lot. I just stare at him, blank-faced, and he takes several deep breaths before he finally calms down.
He looks a little different. A hint of something haunted in his eyes, a faint air of weariness. He turns away from me, his brows drawing together.
“I’ve never been jealous before. It’s an unpleasant feeling. Messy, ineffective.” He’s staring out the window as he says that, and it’s more like he’s speaking to himself than me. Chastising himself for his weakness. He turns to face me again. “I’m not lying when I say that if you so much as flirted with another man, I’d have to kill him. I couldn’t stop myself. So be warned.”
I shake my head. “No. Just no. I can’t live like this, Joshua. You need to let me out of this car, now. You need to let me live my life.” I grab at the door handle, but of course it’s locked.
“I can’t. It’s not safe. My brother escaped from the prison hospital yesterday evening. Seduced a doctor this time. You’d think they’d learn not to let any women near him. Her body was found by the side of the road an hour ago.”
A wave of ice crashes over me. Horrible images crowd into my brain. Phantom agony stabs up my rectum, and I hear the sounds of Micah’s grunts in my ear as he violated me there. I scrabble for my purse and pull out my phone. He puts his hand over mine.
“Who were you planning on calling?”
“Astrid. Her children.”
“They already know.”
“Are they safe?’
“Yes. Sweet little Tamara, always worrying and putting other people’s needs before her own.” There’s a hint of gentle mockery in his voice.
I drop the phone back into my purse and look away from him, struggling to pull air into my lungs. Micah’s free… He’s looking for me. I’m sure of it. I wouldn’t survive another round with him. I wouldn’t survive anotherhourwith him.
“I was going to go off the grid anyway.” Is my voice trembling? I clear my throat. “I’ll ditch my phone, work under the table. I’ll…stay hidden. I’ll be careful.”
“Yeah, you’re doing a great job so far,” he scoffs. “If I could trick you into getting into a fake cab, so could my brother. That money he stole from me? I haven’t been able to track it down. He has a hundred million dollars of mine. That kind of money means he can find just about anyone, anywhere, given enough time.”
I cross my arms over my chest like a sullen kindergartener. “So, what? You plan to lock me away forever to save me?”
He shakes his head, and now there’s a spark of humor in his eyes. “I won’t have to. You’re going to come around. You’re going to decide to stay with me on your own. And in the meantime, we’re going to work on those self-defense skills.”
“I kicked your thug’s ass back at the restaurant,” I remind him with a smirk.
He smiles coldly. “That’s because I told him that if he hurt you in any way, I’d peel the skin from his body and make him into a leather jacket.”
Oh. I feel a little deflated. I thought I was seriously badass back there. Guess not.
