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There was something classic about it. Classic, and yet wild. He had appreciated it from the moment he’d set eyes on it last week. From the moment he had decided on his course of action.
The chamber that he had selected for her, had had furnished and decorated and filled with beautiful clothes, had been chosen specifically with her in mind. He had imagined how she might react to it. Had imagined the delight she might take in the way the soft mattress molded itself around her body, in the way the soft fabrics felt against her skin.
Instead, when she saw the room, her expression was blank.
“Is it not to your liking?”
“As jail cells go, I imagine it’s quite a beautiful one.”
“There is a library,” he bit out. “Just through that door.”
“Do you think this is a movie? And that you can buy away my ire with books?”
“You told me you liked books,” he said.
“Books and freedom. Perhaps I should have added that last part.”
“Sadly, in this instance, you may have one, but not the other.”
He began to walk away, his heart thundering hard, rage he did not quite understand beginning to spike in his system.
“How do you expect that you’ll force me to marry you?” she asked. “I can’t do anything about the fact that you have me in this house, but you cannot make me say vows.”
He paused, bone-deep satisfaction rolling through him. “I already told you, tesoro. I have thought of absolutely everything.”
“What have you thought of?”
“You told me that you live for other people. For your father. Well, I know things about Michael Hart that would destroy your girlish fantasies of the man you call father. I can ruin him, Liliana. His reputation, his fortune. I can reduce it all to dust.”
“How? My father is a good man.”
“Your father is a criminal, who has made the same mistake a great many idiotic criminals make. He has built his power upon legitimacy. For my part? I am a criminal who would lose nothing if the world were to find out.”
“You could be arrested for kidnapping me.”
“Could I? Do you suppose I am not prepared to bribe officials in Spain and in the United States to make sure that is not so? You mistake me for a man with limits.”
“The man that I knew back at my father’s home... He was not a monster.”
“Yes,” Diego said, advancing toward her. “He was. The monster is always there, Liliana, and make no mistake.” He reached out, grabbing hold of her hand and forcing it down onto his chest, over his heart. “Understand this. No matter how civil I may seem, the monster is always there. When I’m smiling at you, the monster is there. Right there,” he said, pounding her hand against him now. “Do not ever forget it.”
Her eyes went wide, and for a moment he thought he might have succeeded in terrifying her. Then her face relaxed, a clear decision having taken place inside her.
“As seduction bids go,” she said, her voice wobbly, “this is not a good one.”
She was tough, was Liliana. Never as fragile as she appeared.
“At what point did you begin to believe this was a seduction? If I had wanted to seduce you, I would have done so back at your father’s home. I could have. We both know. The moment you told me you were to marry my brother I could have had you on the floor. I can sense how badly you want me. But it’s not enough. It’s not permanent enough for my purposes. And that’s why I didn’t. I wanted insurance. And I found it. Your father has been scamming those who invest in his company. And I have the proof. Not only that, there are rafts of harassment allegations from a great many female employees. All buried. Covered up by his money. But the only person who possesses the power to pay more than he does is me. I have my finger poised on the kill button, Liliana, and he would be a fool to think I won’t press it.”
“He... He couldn’t have.”
“Oh, but he could have. And did.”
“If you draw attention to yourself...”
“My reputation as a gambler, womanizer and reprobate will be compromised?”
She shrank in on herself, clearly realizing that she was defeated.
“I recommend that you get a good night’s sleep. For we are to be married as quickly as possible.”
“How?”
“I have already begun the paperwork for a license. It requires only your signature and then it is poised to be processed. After which I have arranged for an officiant to come and speak our vows to us. I am a traditionalist at heart. I could have simply had us married over the computer, but I find technology so cold.”
“I don’t think it’s technology. I rather think it’s your heart.”
He laughed. “No, darling. I don’t have a heart.”
“I just felt it beating.”
“You just felt the monster. Trying to escape.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#u8892137c-27e9-53cb-b243-b2688dd1931e)
LILIANA WAITED UNTIL she was certain that Diego was asleep. Or, if not asleep, then not roaming the house. She needed to figure out if there was some method that she could use to contact the outside world.
In all likelihood, there wasn’t.
And in fact, Diego would probably be insulted if she voiced that to him. “No, tesoro,” she intoned in a deep voice, “I would not be so sloppy as to leave an accessible landline.”
She blew out a breath and sneaked out of the bedroom, padding down the hall and then down the stairs. She knew there had to be an office down there. And perhaps, if she could find that, there would be a phone. A fax machine. Something.
She could hardly believe she had been kidnapped only a few hours ago. She felt as if it had been days. She felt as if she had been wearing this nightgown for her entire life.
She had looked in the closets and seen there were other clothes, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to put any of them on. Not even an alternate nightgown. It was too strange. She was not going to take something offered to her by a kidnapper and a blackmailer.
Her heart twisted.
That was the most difficult thing. That part of her had felt something for Diego. That she had thought there had been some mystical connection between them from the moment they’d met two years ago. And it had been a lie.
It’s just the monster trying to get out.
If this was him with his monster buried, then she really wouldn’t like to see him with the monster out.
She picked around the furniture downstairs, tiptoeing to one closed door after the other. Some rooms were empty, others holding dusty furniture that gave her some measure of hope. It was entirely possible he hadn’t scoured the place for methods of communication.
The man who put the thumbprint reader on the door didn’t look for a phone?
She ignored her mouthy inner bitch and pressed on.
She was crouched down below the desk when the door to the study opened.
“What exactly are you doing?”
She popped up, banging her head on the furniture, so hard that a white light burst behind her eyes. She rubbed at it furiously, whimpering as she tried to stand.
Suddenly, strong arms had come around her, were holding her close, pulling her against his body. “Do not hurt yourself,” he growled.
Heat spread through her like a fire, the strength in his hold shocking. She forgot to breathe, her head swimming, her body going weightless and floaty. From not breathing. Not from the look in those dark, stormy eyes. Not from staring down at those sculpted lips and wondering how it would feel if they...
She took a step back, stumbling slightly, but finding balance when she was some distance from him.
“Do not startle me,” she bit out.
“It was not my intention to startle you. Why are you snooping around?”
“I need to talk to my father.”
He laughed. “All you had to do was say so.”
“You’re going to let me talk to my father?”
“I imagine you have questions for him. It behooves me that he answer them. Because I am not lying to you. I know that you wish I were. But if you need to hear it from your father himself, then by all means.”
He held his cell phone out to her, and she took it, feeling suspicious. “I’m not even sure what time it is there.”
“Does it matter? You have been kidnapped, after all.”
“You’re not worried that my father is going to call the police?”
“My brother already has.”
“And you’re not worried...”
“So concerned for my feelings, tesoro. It is admirable, and a bit touching, but there really is no need. I am more rock than man.”
“Unsurprising.”
She dialed her father’s number, feeling self-conscious with Diego standing there staring at her. Her head still throbbed.
“Hello?”
“Father,” Liliana said. “I’ve been kidnapped.”
“How much money does he want?” her father asked, his voice clipped and tight, but not as surprised as she would’ve thought.
“I... He wants to marry me.”
“Are you having a last-minute fit about marrying Matías?”
“No,” she protested. “I’m not having a fit. I’m currently a victim of a crime.”
“What?”
“I was kidnapped. I told you. From Matías’s house.”
“Who has taken you?”
“Diego. Diego Navarro.”
The silence on the end of the phone suddenly became weighted. Tense. “What does he want?”
“To marry me,” she reiterated. “It’s complicated. But he said... He said I had to.”
“Why did he say that?” The fact that her father didn’t sound shocked concerned her more than just about anything else.
“He said he knows things about you. Things that could ruin you. He said... He said that he can destroy you. Your reputation. Your fortune. Everything. If it’s not true...”
“You must stay with him,” her father said. “You must give him what he asks for.”
Liliana felt like the world had dropped out from beneath her feet. “I... You can’t truly expect for me to marry my kidnapper?”
“One Navarro should be the same as the other. In any case, this one is much more dangerous.”
“He kidnapped me.”
“Has he harmed you?”
“I have been terrorized,” she said, ignoring the flare of amusement in Diego’s eyes when she said the word.
Honestly, she wanted to hit him.
“Has he put his hands on you in any way?” her father pressed.
“Other than when he carried me out of my bedroom window, no,” she admitted, reluctant to do so, because it was clear that somehow that seemed to absolve Diego from taking her against her will.
“I cannot tell you I have no reason for concern,” her father said. “I can only tell you that if you don’t wish to lose absolutely everything we have... You must marry him.”
“But I...”
“Your mother dearly loved our life together. She loved the company that she and I built together. To lose it would destroy her.”
But she’s dead. Liliana wanted to scream. She couldn’t. So she didn’t. Instead, she simply hung up the phone. With numb fingers, she handed it back to Diego.
“I assume he did not give you the answer that you required.”
“No.”
