Page 17 of The Millionaire's Mechanic

“I will, but it’s the most common car on the road, down to the make and the color,” Powell warned. “And they’ve probably changed the plates.”

“What about traffic cams? Can we track them that way?”

“Already on it,” Powell assured him.

Sighing, Rainer rubbed his face. Once Powell left to keep coordinating the search, he turned back to Georgia. She appeared lost in thought, her eyes fixed on the wall.

She looked so small and vulnerable lying there. Pity warred with an intense feeling of protectiveness. It would be so easy for the kidnappers to tie the address of the house back to Georgia and Elite motors. She couldn’t go back to work any more than she could go home.

But she’ll insist on it.The girl who quietly worked in a field so heavily dominated by men would want to go back to work. Georgia would want to get as many hours in as she could to help Ephraim.

Unless you get her out of town.

Returning to her side, he hesitated. He didn’t have the right to comfort her physically. But when she turned those big hazel eyes up at him, suddenlynottouching her seemed wrong.

Wrapping an arm around her, he leaned her against his side. “Georgia, I’m going to need you to trust me.”

Her response blindsided him with its simple faith. “I do trust you. What do you need?”

CHAPTERNINE

Georgia buckled her seatbelt with a sense of awe and disbelief at her luxurious surroundings. This plane could comfortably hold a dozen people. Two couches faced each other with a leather chair at either end. Each of these had a fancy control panel that would elevate the footrest and lower the back, turning each chair into a fully reclining bed.

Rainer told her the jet wasn’t his—it was a charter from a company he contracted to fly him all over the world. But it was still private. Aside from the crew, they were the only people on board. Not even that terrifying man, Stewart Powell, was aboard.

“We’re not going to need security where we’re going,” Rainer had when they first boarded the plane.

The response had puzzled her, but she’d been too overwhelmed at the time to argue or ask for more details. But after a few hours of flight, reclining in the plush leather chair while sipping on the endless fruit juices the air hosts kept bringing, she felt better. Less muddled now, she started to doubt her actions.

Georgia had put herself in Rainer Torsten’s hands. She didn’t even know where he was taking her.

He’d also told her she couldn’t go back to work, arranging for her to take a leave of absence from Elite. “They won’t fire you,” he assured her when she panicked, concerned Mitch would use the leave as an excuse to let her go. “I’m too good a client for them to offend.”

“What did you tell them?” she asked curiously.

“Just that I needed to borrow you for a special project.” When she frowned, he added. “I may have strongly implied it had to do with the Talbot. I think they assumed I came across it on your Instagram, and I didn’t correct them—they have no reason to think you came to me. Not unless you told them.”

She assured him that she hadn’t. “What about Ephraim? Why couldn’t he come with us?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Because it’s easier for two to drop off the grid than it is three. Also, Ephraim expressed concerns about going dark. He wanted to keep in touch with his remaining clients. If he doesn’t stay available to them, he might lose them, and I didn’t want to add to his stress levels.”

Her leaving had done that already. But Rainer was right. If Ephraim disappeared right now, he would lose those last few clients. And that would irreparably damage what was left of Ephraim’s self-esteem. So much of his sense of self came from pride in his work and having his clients’ trust. Not that he had been thinking about them at all this morning.

“Don’t worry about me, Georgia,” her father had told her just before they left for the airport. “You just stay safe.”

It was strange that Ephraim hadn’t questioned Rainer’s ability to do that. But then he might have assumed the man’s many bodyguards would be accompanying them.

Beat, Georgia took a deep breath and closed her eyes, but that proved to be a mistake as the world beyond her lids began to spin with vertigo.

She opened her eyes to find Rainer leaning over her. He held the bottle of prescription painkillers his doctor had given her. “It’s time for another dose.”

It was at least an hour ahead of schedule, but Georgia wasn’t about to argue. The pounding in her head had resumed and what little breakfast Rainer had coaxed her into eating was starting to swirl unpleasantly in her stomach. She didn’t want to throw up on these nice leather seats.

Too weak to argue, she meekly held out her hand. He shook two pills out onto her palm, then fetched her a bottle of water from a hidden mini-refrigerator next to her seat.

Georgia sat up in surprise. Unless you were aware of it, you’d never know the tiny compartment was there.

“That is seamless,” she marveled, briefly distracted from her pain. She stroked the sleek panel with her fingers. “The fridge doesn’t even hum.”

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