Page 75 of Married to My Master

“For the last time,” Emily said, pausing to take a more modest sip than before. “No, Jas.”

“Look,” Jas said, setting aside the glass. “You keep saying it, and I keep hearing it. But you're not convincing yourself, or me. You love Dane, and I know it.”

“Jas,” she said, a warning note in her voice.

Her assistant ignored the warning. “When have you ever been so nervous about something that felt right to you?” Jas asked. “Huh? When was the last time your confidence in your choice was so shaken that you had to drink to go through with it?”

Emily didn't say anything. She couldn't. She genuinely had no response, because Jas was right.

But, then, she was saved by a knock at the suite door.

Jas started to cross to get it, but Emily stopped her. “Probably just my mother,” Emily growled. She threw the door open, and her jaw dropped.

She barely had time to register who it was standing at the door before she felt a sharp stab in her thigh, through her dress. She looked down at the syringe in the man's hand, then looked back up at him.

“You. Dane?”

“You're coming with me,” he growled to her.

In a flash, Emily was transported back to the day she'd first met Dane Bishop. It was suddenly just like it was yesterday, where he was stuffing her into the passenger side of her Escalade and kidnapping her. As the sedative—her sedative, she realized—began to work through her veins, she shook her head to try and clear her suddenly fuzzy thoughts.

It was no use, though. Between the quick glass of champagne she'd just downed and the sedatives in her thigh, it was like her skull was stuffed with cotton and her brain was made of cotton candy.

“Jas,” Emily turned to her assistant. “You remember Dane Bishop, don't you?”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Emily

Jas's head jerked back and forth between them, her eyes like saucers. She trembled, a little like a Chihuahua. “What the hell are you doing, Dane?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“Keep calm,” Emily soothed, the sedative apparently being just what she needed to soothe her frazzled nerves.

Why she hadn't thought of it in the first place, she had no idea. But, damn girl, was that a great cocktail with the champagne, or what?

“I'm really sorry,” Dane said to Jas, as he grabbed hold of Emily and pulled her from the room, wedding dress train flying out behind her as he led her barefoot down the thickly carpeted halls. “This is just something I have to do!”

Jas came out of the bridal suite after them, stopping at the open doorway “Emily!” she shouted.

“Go for help!” Emily called back, almost as if it was a formality, but not even bothering to fight Dane as he dragged her to the elevator that would take them to the parking garage below.

Besides, she was feeling pretty good at the moment. All the stress from the last few months, with the wedding and the new job, had completely evaporated from her shoulders when the sweet little cocktail entered her circulation. She no longer cared one way or another what happened to her, although, she was kind of grateful that Dane had finally swooped back into her life.

“I just didn't know how to explain it to you otherwise,” he said, as he dragged her into the elevator and hit the button for the parking garage. “No other way I could think of that you'd understand how serious I was.”

Her eyelids suddenly very heavy, she fluttered her eyes in an almost vain attempt to keep them open. She looked around, bleary-eyed, at the inside of the elevator as it lowered them down into the depths of the earth, and her eyes finally settling on the form of her handsome tormentor.

The doors buzzed open and Dane grabbed her in his bear-trap-strong grip, pulling her out into the garage. He dragged her, not quite kicking and screaming, to his car, an older Honda Accord. He stuffed her into the passenger seat, just like he had that day a little over a year ago, then went around and hopped in behind the wheel.

He pulled out with a squeal of tires, then flew out of the garage as fast as he safely could.

She slumped in the passenger seat, realizing just how arrogant she suddenly didn't feel. Gone was her sense of knowing what was best all the time for everyone, for even herself. So what if she'd thought Ian was going to be perfect for her and that he'd be able to give her a good life? What fun would it have been?

Emily knew she'd never be able to escape Dane Bishop, no matter what she did. She could run to the ends of the earth, all the way to Kathmandu or some other ridiculous place, and he'd still show up looking for her. They were connected on some deep level, one deeper than she had ever considered possible.

Besides, why would she want to?

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