Page 11 of Eros
After a brief moment, she nodded. “My father.”
Chapter Five
Janea
Ididn’tevenknowwhy I told him the truth. Maybe it was a moment of weakness, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. It was too late to take it back.
As I sat twisting my hands in my lap in disbelief, tear after tear dropped from my eyes. He just gazed at me with confusion. Knowing my name meant he also knew my father, and he was wondering why the Lt. Governor of California would want his daughter dead.
But I wasn’t confused. It was the only thing that made any sense to me. He realized probably with some persuasion from Shannon that I heard his plan. I didn’t want to believe it, but the only person who would want me dead other than the man standing in front of me was the one who raised me as his daughter since I was two years old.
This can’t be real. He treated me like his own, now he’s treating me like I’m no one.
I wiped tears from my cheeks. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat pounding harder and faster as my fear increased. Drenched in sweat, my breaths became more labored as the walls surrounding me started closing in. Panic seized my body, the queasy feeling in my stomach intensified, and the sour taste of vomit filled my mouth. I leaned forward, gasping for air I couldn’t reach. My head swam, and my chest burned as I put my head between my knees.
“Breathe.”
His deep, raspy voice wrapped around me like a warm embrace, its gentle cadence breaking through some of the fog as I struggled to get my breathing under control.
“I… can’t…” I said, struggling to get the words out of my mouth. “I…”
“Janea, look at me.”
Even though it sounded more like a command, his words carried a subtle melody that stripped away some of the fog of panic suffocating me. It had been a very long time since I had a panic attack, and the only person who could talk me through them was the person who caused it.
His warm palm landed on my back and heat raced through my entire body. I gazed into soft, kind eyes. The way he looked at me now was totally different from what I faced with him earlier.
“You need to breathe, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
Each breath felt like it took massive effort. My lungs burned like a thousand needles puncturing the soft tender flesh, but I nodded while I struggled to pull air in.
“That’s it,” he said, rubbing my back in soothing circles. “Breathe in and out.”
His gentle words were such a contradiction because how could the man who was obviously doing something in the park heshouldn’t have been doing and kidnapped me, be so comforting to me.
After a few more moments of breathing in and out, and the gentle touch of my captor, the tightness in my chest loosened enough to where I wasn’t gasping for air and where my lungs didn’t burn. When I could breathe, he stepped away from me. I shouldn’t have been grateful for his help, but I was.
“Thank you.”
“You get panic attacks often?” he asked when he leaned against the table, folded his arms over his chest, and crossed his legs at the ankles like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Even though he was breathtakingly handsome, the sickening reality was that he was an asshole and was holding me against my will. It didn’t matter that his dark brown hair, cut low on the sides, and long at the top, looked so silky to the touch and I wanted to run my fingers through it to prove it. Or that his full beard of the same color added to his dangerous aura and made him even more attractive to me than he should be. Despite the red flags waving all around me, a strange attraction pulled my gaze toward him that had my mind conjuring up all kinds of nasty things.
That’s a problem.
“What’s your name?” He just looked at me with a smirk but didn’t answer. “It’s not fair that you know my name, and I don’t know yours.”
He chuckled. “Life ain’t fair, sweetheart.”
Every time he called me sweetheart something fluttered inside my stomach, and I absolutely detested it. I should feel nothing other than pure hate for this man. He kidnapped me and wouldn’t let me go.
“Could you stop calling me, sweetheart?” I looked at him with disgust I didn’t even feel toward him. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”
A devastating smile crossed his face like he wasn’t buying the reaction I tried to sell him. He wasn’t handsome in the conventional way, but he was gorgeous. He had a full beard, filled out his white t-shirt, and blue jeans to perfection. He wasn’t a man who spent his time in a suit sitting inside a corporate office. He wasn’t anywhere close to the men I’d been attracted to, but I found him extremely good looking.
Heat crawled up my neck. The way he looked at me as we stared at one another had my heart racing when I should curse his ass out for keeping me here.
