Page 30 of Scarlet Secrets

Something in his face makes me stop talking and the words dry up. And again, I question who he is and the danger levels he represents. Maybe he’s worse or just as bad as those men.

But I’m here and Max is… Max is… not.

I wait for him to speak but he doesn’t, so I gulp in a breath, then take another, my skin both hot and cold and my insides roiling.

Trapped. In a car. With my son’s sperm donor.

That’s what he is. We had sex, and he managed to knock me up and he certainly didn’t look for me like I did him. Sperm donor.

It makes me feel better thinking about it like that.

He’ll let me go soon when he sees I know nothing about this, and I’ll swear blind I don’t know who he is. Swear I’ve never met him. What I won’t do is slip up and spill my secret.

My heart clenches tight as I grip the bottle.

Sasha… Fuck, how the hell do I let Kara know what happened? She’ll call the cops if I don’t return and no doubt the shooting’s made the news. But my baby. I’ve never been away from him longer than a few hours. Tonight marked the milestone of a few more. But I’d have cut and run after the wedding, and now… now… now I’m caught.

How long is this dangerous, rich man going to hold me?

He is dangerous. My brother was right. We’re in a car with other Russians who have guns. He has a gun.

I turn to demand I go home. To tell him I have to, but the moment his gaze hits mine, I stumble back mentally and point at his whiskey. “Can I have one, please?”

He pours one and hands it to me. “Feeling better?”

“You can’t keep me,” I say. “You know that, right?”

“Got somewhere to be?”

Everything in me screams yes, but I just say work in the morning. He makes a sound and goes back to his phone, this time sending messages.

Shit. I can’t say I have to go home. Even if he let me go, he’d then know where I live. Or worse, he’d see me home. I can’t let him find out about Sasha. Because if he did, he’d see that I kept our son from him, denied him his heir or whatever, and then… then he’d kill me.

Or take Sasha and never, ever let me see him, which is the same as killing me.

Three years. I kept our son from him for three years. From the moment I found out, I was pregnant to now. Yeah, he’ll take him and punish me.

This is a brutal and dangerous man. After all, he didn’t even react to a shootout at the wedding, to the kidnapping of the bride. To… to checking me with fast and competent hands like he did it all the time.

The man’s not shocked. Not afraid. What the fuck kind of dark and deadly world does he live in?

It must be brutal and violent. Tom was right to urge me tokeep away from him. Shit, I don’t even know his real name; Tom wouldn’t tell me.

And now… I’m in the lion’s den and my son’s in danger because of it. I don’t want my baby in this horrible world of his.

“Erin?”

I look at him and our gazes clash and it hits me down in the pit of my stomach. “What?”

“I was going to ask you the same. You’re shaking.”

“Oh.” I didn’t even realize. Before I can say anything else, he strips off his jacket and hands it to me.

“Put it on.” He pauses. “Please.”

I take it and slip it on, letting the heat of his body that clings to it seep in, and that whiskey, honeyed lavender scent with notes of leather surround me and make me slightly woozy with memory.

“Thanks.”

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