Page 69 of When Stars Collide
“Shut up!” their kidnapper shouted at exactly the same time. He spun on Thad. “Give me your wallet. Toss it over there.”
Thad did as he demanded.
“Now your phone,” the man said.
“Don’t do it!” Olivia exclaimed.
Thad ignored her. The man kept the gun leveled as he bent down to snatch them both up.
“Now that watch.”
Thad unclipped the Victory780 and tossed it toward his feet.
The man turned in her direction. “Give me your purse.”
She couldn’t get past her fury. “It’s in the limo, you moron.”
“Liv...” Thad’s voice sounded a sharp, warning note.
But she’d sucked Thad into what should have been her crisis alone, and she was beyond reason. “Big man wants to do drama! I do drama better than anyone!”
The man lunged for her. She let both hands fly, hurling the glass at his face.
He gave a howl of shock, and that was all Thad needed to charge him. The gun fired and flew into the air. She screamed, lost her balance, and fell.
“Liv!” Thad spun toward her.
With no weapon, the driver lurched for the limo.
The car door slammed, and Thad went to his knees beside her. His hands frantically moved over her body, and in the adrenaline rush flooding her, she couldn’t comprehend why he was feeling her up at a time like this.
“Liv! Where did you get hit?”
He wasn’t feeling her up. He was... “I didn’t.” She rolled to the side. “I fell.”
Thad spotted the gun and rushed with it toward the limo, but by the time he fired, the car was peeling onto the road, gravel spraying like shrapnel.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. In the distance, the lights on a transmission tower blinked, and she heard the faraway sound of a freight train. They were alone in the thick desert dark.
As she breathed in the dusty cloud from the car tires, all her fury evaporated, leaving her with a racing heart and wobbly legs as she pushed herself to her knees. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For dragging you into my problems.”
“Shut up, Liv, okay?” It was the second time he’d said that to her, but now his gentle tone made her want to weep. “Maybe he was after the watches.”
As she started to argue with him, she felt something by her hand. She closed her fingers around his watch and held it out. “A lot of effort for nothing.”
“Bastard.” He clicked on the safety and shoved the gun in his waistband. As he took the watch from her, he helped her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
One of the gel breast lifts she’d worn instead of a bra had fallen from the V of her dress. She fumbled for it, but layers of sandy grit adhered to the sticky surface, so she retrieved her flamenco shawl instead. He helped her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
Having lopsided breasts, she decided, was only a minor complication compared to the bigger challenge of trekking down a dark, rutted gravel road wearing five-inch stilettos.
Thad was thinking the same thing. “You’ll never make it to the highway in those shoes. I’ll carry you piggyback.”
“Never.” Olivia Shore, the toast of the Metropolitan, the jewel of La Scala, the pride of the Royal Opera, did not piggyback on anyone, no matter how broad and strong they were. She tossed the dusty shawl around her shoulders. “I’ll be fine.”
