Page 10 of Chasing Paradise

My mother was right; he was super hot. It was even more apparent up close. Even with the hat shading his pretty eyes and casting part of his face in shadow, it was painfully clear how much I’d lied when I’d said he wasn’t that hot.

“Who sent you?” he demanded again, more steel slipping into his voice, making my back straighten.

Who sent me?

That was a weird reaction.

I could understand demanding who I was, why I was following him, what I thought I was doing.

But who sent me?

That made no sense at all.

Unless he had some reason to believe someone would be coming after him.

Other than, of course, for skipping out on his court date.

“What do you mean, who sent me?”

“Cut the shit. Who sent you? The company?”

“What company?”

“My company.” His voice was getting a bit of a growl as his agitation grew.

His company?

Why would his company want to send someone after him? Let alone all the way to Ecuador? Wouldn’t they want to completely wash their hands of him? Distance themselves from his crimes? No one likes a white-collar criminal. It was bad business to still be associated with him.

Unless they wanted him back to pay for his crimes, to clear the company of any wrongdoing in the public’s eye?

Could there be another bounty hunter out looking for him? Or, worse yet, someone who didn’t operate under the laws of the United States?

I mean, I wasn’t one to talk, but most bounty hunters did follow the rules. Or, at least, most of them.

Had he been followed or threatened before?

But if he suspected his company was after him, why dawdle in the shops? Why drag his feet instead of getting the hell out of Dodge as fast as possible?

It wouldn’t be hard to disappear.

I think when I’d heard he was going to Ecuador, I’d immediately assumed that he was going to just…. fade away into the jungle or something. I hadn’t anticipated it to be as populated and busy as it was. There were buses and trains and cabs leaving the town all the time. It would be easy to get in one, away from a trail, and never be seen again.

“No one sent me,” I insisted.

“Bullshit.”

Okay.

He was just a little too jazzed up for my liking.

I mean, true, in my line of work, a man who was in any way agitated had to be seen and treated like a direct threat. It was too easy for things to get bad very fast.

I ducked down, bringing my arm up over his, then rotated while driving my shoulder forward and twisting my wrist out of his hold.

It went exactly as it was meant to.

What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was that my skip might be similarly as trained as I was, effortlessly grabbing me again, wrapping my arms around the front of me like a hug as he anchored me against his chest. Then he applied enough pressure to make it impossible for me to break my arms free without using my legs or heels.

---