The Mogul and the Muscle: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(72)

“Yeah. Thanks, Inda.”

Gripping the steering wheel again, I accelerated down the slope of the bridge. She wasn’t wrong. I had a hard time letting people get close to me. Probably because I knew how much it hurt to lose them.

Hazard of growing up an orphan.

Things had been happening so fast. I hadn’t approached this relationship like I usually did. No lengthy period of dinner dates and appearing in public together at events and galas. No careful consideration as to lifestyle compatibility. No analysis of goals and schedules and logistics.

God, that made dating me sound like a nightmare.

With Jude, I’d given into my feelings. My desires. The things my body—and my heart—wanted without over-analyzing the potential consequences. I’d started to let him in—really let him see me—but stopped just short of taking the full risk.

We came out onto the road, the village up ahead, but I stopped. “I should go back and talk to him. I handled that so badly and he doesn’t deserve to be my punching bag because I’m stressed.”

“No, but I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

Those tears threatened to well up again and a lump rose in my throat. Would he forgive me? God, I hoped so. Because suddenly all I could think about was how empty my life would be without him. About how much I needed him. I didn’t want to need anybody—not like this—because that was a surefire way to get hurt, but damn it, I did.

I didn’t just need him. I loved him.

Oh my god, I loved that big, gigantic, mysterious, infuriating, gentle, amazing man. I loved him so much, I almost couldn’t breathe.

“Aw, Cameron,” Inda said, and reached over to rub my shoulder.

An engine rumbled behind us. I was stopped in the middle of the street, no longer on the golf cart path—I needed to get out of the way. But my eyes were swimming with so many tears, my vision blurred.

Sniffing, I swiped my fingers beneath my eyes.

Inda let out a startled yell that was instantly muffled. The world went dark, and it wasn’t tears blurring my vision. My breath was hot against the fabric suddenly covering my face. Thick arms grabbed me—thick arms that did not belong to Jude. They were hard and sinewy, pinning my arms down, dragging me out of the golf cart.

I tried to scream through the fabric covering my head, but a hand clamped over my mouth and nose. I couldn’t breathe. Someone had my upper body and another set of arms quickly wrapped around my legs, carrying me like a rolled-up carpet. I thrashed and tried to kick, but they had me immobilized.

My heart raced and my lungs screamed for air. The hand still held my face in a tight grip, jamming the fabric into my mouth, covering my nose. I wiggled and writhed, but there were hands everywhere—was I being grabbed by a human octopus?—holding me down. Tying my legs. Binding my wrists.

Finally the hand covering my face eased and I sucked in a lungful of air. I couldn’t see, but I was lying on a hard surface. I heard the distinct sound of a van door closing and suddenly I was moving. God, I hoped Inda was okay.

The strangest thing happened in my brain. The words I’ve just been kidnapped flitted through my mind, but instead of inducing panic—which would probably have been the sane response, although not very useful—I felt suddenly detached. Like this was happening to someone else and I was along for the ride. An observer, rather than a participant.

Because this couldn’t be happening to me. I couldn’t have just been snatched out of my golf cart on the streets of my very safe, gated, secure enclave. I couldn’t be riding in the back of a van with a bag over my head, totally immobilized by both ropes and the hands of some very strong men.

But it was happening.

And as if this insane situation needed something else to make it even more terrifying, the hand on my mouth released just as something hard pressed against my forehead. I heard the very recognizable, very distinct sound of a gun being cocked.

My brain did another strange thing. Instead of focusing on the gun pointed at my head, it fixated on the fact that the raspy voices murmuring around me sounded Russian.





32





Cameron





Fear can do surprising things to a person. Some people crack in the face of terrifying danger. They pass out, or scream, or shake and cower. Others fight back, adrenaline making them stronger, and sometimes reckless.

It made me calm.

The van stopped and the rolling metal sound told me they’d slid open the door. The pressure of the gun barrel against my forehead disappeared and hands and arms once again manhandled me. They hoisted me out—roughly—and carried me… somewhere.

One of my shoes fell off. It was utterly ridiculous how angry that made me, considering Inda and I had been kidnapped by men with guns. She hadn’t made a sound, and I firmly told myself she was just being cooperative, like I was. It wasn’t because they’d knocked her unconscious. Or worse.

Maybe that was why I was focusing on my now bare foot and the image of my beautiful red suede and crystal Jimmy Choo lost on the ground somewhere behind us. A defense mechanism to keep the eerie detached calmness I felt from breaking.

I had a feeling the other alternative was incoherent screaming, and there was a good chance that would get me killed. So I kept that shoe in my head, letting my mind come up with a loose plan for retracing my steps—or rather, the steps of the men carrying me—to get it back.