Page 9 of Forbidden Vows

“You do whatever you want with him, Andrei, but call off the hit on her, alright? Tell your boys to back off and forget she exists,” he commands.

A wave of relief washes over me upon hearing that.

He shakes his head. “No, that’s all you need to know right now. We’ll discuss the details later, but I want you to promise me, swear to me, that she’s off-limits. Good. Thank you. And don’t kill that sorry son of a bitch yet. We’ll figure out something else.”

He sighs and sets the phone down. “That stubborn ass.”

“I get to go home?” I ask, my voice hopeful.

A peculiar disappointment ties a knot in the back of my throat. Not the feeling I’d expected when finding out I could leave.

My ridiculously handsome captor gets up and turns around in all his naked glory, the look on his face telling me everything I need to know.

It ends here.

“You’re free to go. I’ll have a car waiting for you downstairs,” he says. The tone of his voice is different. He sounds cold. Professional. Back to how he was when he first took me.

He’s accomplished his mission, so there’s no reason for him to be nice to me anymore. Oh, God, what a fool I was!

“So, that’s it, huh?” I ask, quick to cover myself with the corner of a blanket.

He gives me a confused look. “You were so eager to leave last night. I can now grant you that wish. A ‘thank you’ would suffice. I’ll hit the shower in the spare bedroom. Feel free to use the master bathroom.”

All I can do is watch him walk away and disappear into the other room.

The ghost of his hazel-green eyes lingers while I take a deep breath and try to figure out what to do next. My phone is in the living room, along with my clothes. My heels. My purse.

My dignity.

Right there on the floor.

I feel used, but I wanted this. Hell, I wanted more. I couldn’t get enough of this man whose name I still don’t know.

Hence the sting—the sense of rejection.

There’s no use in talking about it. What happened, happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I muster the strength to get up and turn on the shower. I wrap a towel around myself and retrieve my items from the living room. Ten minutes later, I’m dressed. I slip my phone back into my purse. The battery died overnight, so I don’t have to worry about a throng of messages and missed calls just yet.

“There’s a black town car waiting for you downstairs,” my captor says as he escorts me to the elevator. He’s wearing grey slacks and a black shirt. I still can’t take my eyes off him, still can’t help but wonder. “Thank you,” he adds quietly.

“For what?” I whisper, blinking back tears I didn’t even realize had formed.

“For trusting me. You’re going home safely. You’re going to be alright. Pretend you never saw anything in that back alley, and you’ll keep being alright,” he says.

“Is that a threat?”

“Not at all. It’s my advice to you. You’ve got enough time on the drive over to your place to come up with the perfect excuse for last night’s disappearance. But if you so much as hint at the truth to anyone, I’ll know. The kind of people you don’t want to see again will know. And I can’t promise I can save you a second time.”

The words hit hard and deep.

The man from last night, the man who claimed me and consumed me, is long gone. My kidnapper is back. The cold glare. The tight lip. The merciless tone. It was just an unexpected dream that reached its expected end.

I give him a slight nod and step into the elevator, catching one last glimpse of him before the doors close with a delicate chime.

I doubt we’ll ever see each other again.

By the time the black car pulls up outside the Donovan mansion, I’ve already cried my heart out and come back to my senses.

“Thank you,” I tell the driver as I get out and turn around to face what comes next.

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