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“But in the cabin—”
“In the cabin I thought I was in love with you and I thought you were going to marry me. That wasbeforeI found out what kind of low-life scum you really are, that you have no more feelings for a woman than what you can get out of her. But I can tell you that you will never,everget anything out of me again.”
“I just thought I’d ask,” he said and there was a hint of a smile in his voice. “Let’s get some sleep now.”
Chris didn’t say anymore but she didn’t sleep either as she sat there, her blood boiling. How dare he? How dare daredarehe?
She was still angry when the door was unlocked and opened.
Chapter Twenty
A man grabbed Chris’s arm before she was out the door, roughly pushing her toward the stairs.
“You’re ours once he’s through with you,” the man whispered in her ear as she stumbled up the stairs. “And after he’s killed the pretty boy,” he added, meaning Tynan who was walking behind them. Another man, holding a rifle, brought up the rear.
At the top of the stairs, they were shoved into the dining room where Dysan waited for them. Dysan didn’t say a word as the men tied Tynan to a chair, then left the room.
Dysan lit a cigar, looking at Chris standing at the end of the dining table and at Tynan as he sat immobilized in a chair by the window.
“I have waited a long time for this,” he said at last. “I’ve spent years planning this, what I would do, how I would do it. I had no idea that you’d drop the answer into my hands so easily.”
As Dysan was speaking, he was looking at Tynan, it was as if Chris weren’t even in the room, but she got the impression that she was the answer to which Dysan was referring. She was what Dysan was going to use to do what he wanted to Tynan.
“Before we…die,” Chris said, “could you tell us why? What have we done?”
Dysan took a long draw on his cigar. “I have no intention of telling you anything. By tomorrow, this house will be a pile of cinders and in the ashes will be the bodies of two people. No one will even be able to identify the bodies. Your father will never know what happened to his little daughter.”
“What about the world? Won’t they want to know what happened to Nola Dallas?”
Dysan didn’t speak for a moment. “You are certainly full of surprises.” He turned to Tynan who was still and silent in the chair. “As well as yourself. She isn’t like your usual women.”
“What is it you have against Tynan? And if you think he wants me for anything, you’re wrong. I’m nothing to him, absolutely nothing.”
Dysan gave a little smile of delight. “Of course you’re not. Now, come here.”
Chris stiffened. “I will not.”
“For every order of mine that you disobey, I will take an hour from his life. You obey me and he lives longer.”
“I can’t…” Chris began but she stopped at the look on Dysan’s face. She didn’t look at Tynan because she was beginning to feel her first anger at him. Why didn’t he at least make some form of protest? Did he care so little about her that he’d allow whatever happened to just happen to her?
Chris tried to clear her mind. Tynan wasn’t going to help, wasn’t going to even say anything that might discourage Dysan so it was up to her. What would she do if she were alone in the room with an aggressive man?
She tried to look about the room without seeming to do so and she saw that on the sideboard were two built-in silverware holders. Inside one of them had to be a table knife. If she could lead Dysan that way…
She began moving toward Dysan, and his eyes never left hers. “What makes you think that I care anything about him? He’s only a cowboy who was hired by my father to take me through the rain forest. Did you know that he’d been in jail? My father had to get him out of prison to lead the expedition. He’s not my type of man at all.”
Dysan watched her and Chris was glad to see that his eyes went down to her hips a couple of times, from the way she was swaying them, he could hardly miss them.
“I like a man with power.” She was standing close to him now, both of them in front of the sideboard. “Do you have any idea how very wealthy my father is? Can you imagine what an empire you’d have if you were to merge your kingdom with his?”
Dysan looked amused. “Are you trying to seduce me? Do you think you can make me forget what I really want? You are a bystander who got caught in the crossfire.”
Chris was inches away from him now, her face just below his. “I’m trying to save my own neck. If you and I merge, so to speak, we can have control of a great deal. If you murder me, my father will pursue you to the ends of the earth. Your life will be hell.”
“And what about him?”
“What does he matter? Let him go. We don’t need him.”
