Page 52 of Wedlocked

“You’re coffee is out on the balcony table,” Trisha announced as she stepped back inside my bedroom. She picked up my robe from the end of the bed. “Let’s get this on you first; I don’t want you catching a chill on top of everything else.”

I climbed out of bed, my legs oddly weak. I really did need to start eating and exercising again. I put my arms into the robe’s sleeves before I belted the robe around me. “Thanks Trisha, I really appreciate everything you do for me.”

Trisha clucked her tongue, then smiled. “I know you do, sweetheart. All I ask is that you look after yourself again.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I’ll start with the coffee, and then if I can, I’ll try a bit of dry toast.”

Trisha clapped her hands. “Wonderful! Now off you go,” she said, shooing me with her hands, “enjoy the balcony and the lovely day outside. I’ll go put on a fresh batch of toast.”

I nodded, and she disappeared out of my bedroom and back downstairs to the kitchen as I stepped onto the balcony. It really was a gorgeous day, the morning sun glowing bright yellowish-white in a cloudless azure sky. I sucked in a deep breath, closing my eyes then at the scent of frangipani and roasted coffee beans.

It was kind of nice not to want to heave, nice not to feel sick to my stomach just for being so alone and distraught. That I seriously missed my husband had me alternating between angry self-denial and poignant yearning every second of the day since I’d ran away.

A scuffling noise made me flick open my eyes a second before a rough hand clapped over my mouth, a man pressing close behind me. I stiffened and sucked in a sharp breath that was filled with citrus and marine aftershave. Ethan? A cloth saturated in something foul was immediately pressed to my nose, blocking out any further scent. I struggled, fighting back even as darkness quickly overcame me.

I woke with my head feeling as though it had been cracked in two, though the dull throbbing noise was thanks to a car’s engine, not from any wound to my head. I blinked, becoming aware I was gagged, with my face pressed against a leather backseat. I tried to move, but my wrists and ankles were bound tightly, cutting off much of my circulation.

Panic hit next and it took everything I had not to hyperventilate. Though talking was all but impossible, I managed to croak something illegible through the tight fabric in my mouth.

“You’re awake.”

It was Ethan! My whole body stiffened. But of course it was! I’d sensed him on the balcony the moment he’d pressed his hand to my mouth, drugging me. He’d damn well kidnapped me! He must seriously hate me now. But surely not even he would tie and gag me like an animal—would he?

I managed to shuffle around to face the front of the vehicle. Ethan was alone and driving me to wherever it was he was taking me. I tried to swallow back a combination of rage and fear, but though my mouth was dust-dry, tears found their way into my eyes.

I peered up into the rearview mirror, looking up at his hard, implacable face, his even harder eyes as he drove.

Oh. My. God.

Realization hit me like a crumbling wall of bricks. He was driving me to wherever it was he planned to kill and then bury me.

My stomach lurched and I heaved even as my airways sealed shut and the gag in my mouth prevented anything from escaping. I coughed and choked, unable to breathe. Panic escalated and I writhed on the seat, gasping and gargling like a fish out of water as my mouth filled and my throat shut down.

My vision darkened at the edges. This was how I was going to die? Death by vomit-suffocation? It might have been funny if I wasn’t so desperate to draw in a breath.

Ethan wrenched the car off the road. My head banged against the inside of the door, then he was jumping out and yanking it open, dragging me out onto the grass and ripping off my gag. I rolled onto my belly and spat out chunks of yuck, then sucked great, gasping deep draughts of oxygen back into my lungs.

Minutes later Ethan was pulling me away from the gross mess I’d made, and wiping my mouth and nose with a cloth. His dark eyes searched mine.

“You should have just left me to die,” I said bitterly. “Why put off the inevitable?”

He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring. But he didn’t deny it, didn’t speak a word as he swept a hand toward the car, motioning me back inside it.

I glowered at him, but it was pointless to argue. Anything I said would be used against me anyway. He hated me now. I could see it in his hard eyes, in his empty expression.

“If I’m going to die,” I said tonelessly, “at least give me the decency to sit in the front seat. I want to see where I’m going to be buried.”

His face pulling tighter than stretched parchment, he said starkly, “It didn’t have to be this way.”

“Didn’t it?” I asked. “Maybe not right now, but tomorrow, next week, even next month, it would have been this exact same scenario. I just sped up the process a little.”

His eyes flashed, but at least he opened the front passenger door for me. What I didn’t expect was for him to then untie my wrists. He stared for a moment at my wedding ring, but not before I realized he still wore his. Did he know I’d also yet to take off the medallion he’d bought me?

So much for it being a lucky charm.

I glared, needing anger to get through the next hour or two. “Thanks for letting me sit in the front with my seatbelt on, where I’ll be safe before you put a bullet through my head.”

I almost laughed when he stayed silent, my hysteria reaching fever pitch. A pity this wasn’t a laughing matter. This was life and death, with the odds well and truly on the latter.

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