“Here, it’s okay.” Peter is crouched in front of me, though I didn’t see him return. His strong hands are loosening the blanket, smoothing my hair back from my sweat-dampened face. I’m shaking and wheezing, in the throes of a full-blown panic attack, and his touch is bizarrely soothing, taking away the worst of the suffocating sensation.
“Breathe, ptichka,” he urges, and I do, my lungs obeying him the way they refuse to obey me. My chest expands with one full breath, then another, and then I’m breathing semi-normally, my throat opening to let in precious oxygen. I’m still sweating, still shaking, but my pulse is slowing, the fear of suffocating disappearing as Peter liberates my arms from the blanket and hands me a man’s black T-shirt.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t have a chance to grab any of your clothes,” he says, helping me pull the enormous T-shirt over my head. “Luckily, Anton stashed a change of clothes in the back. Here, you can put on these pants, too.” He guides my trembling feet into a pair of men’s black jeans, helps me put on a pair of black socks, and removes the blanket altogether, throwing it on the table next to us.
Like the T-shirt, the jeans are huge on me, but there is a belt inside the loops, and Peter tightens it around my hips, knotting it at the front like a tie before rolling up the pant legs.
“There,” he says, eyeing his handiwork with satisfaction. “That should suffice for the flight, and then I’ll get you a brand-new wardrobe.”
I close my eyes, shutting him out. I can’t bear to look at his exotically handsome features, can’t tolerate the warmth in those steel-gray eyes. It’s all a lie, an illusion. He doesn’t care for me, not really. Obsession is not love, and that’s what he feels for me: a dark, terrible obsession that ruins and destroys.
That has already destroyed my life in so many ways.
I hear him sigh before his big hands wrap around my cold palms.
“Sara…” His deep, softly accented voice feels like a caress over my skin. “We’ll make it work, ptichka, I promise. It won’t be as bad as you’re imagining. Now tell me… do you want to call your parents, explain everything to them?”
My parents? Startled, I open my eyes to gape at him. Then I realize he mentioned this before, only I didn’t register it. “You’re letting me call my parents?”
My captor nods, a small smile curving his sculpted lips as he remains crouched in front of me, his hands gently clasping mine. “Of course. I know you don’t want them to worry, with your dad’s heart and all.”
Oh God. My dad’s heart. My headache intensifies at the reminder. At eighty-seven, my dad is remarkably healthy for his age, but he had a triple bypass surgery a few years back and has to avoid stress. And I can’t imagine anything more stressful than— “Do you think the FBI spoke to them already?” I gasp in sudden horror. “Did they tell my parents I was kidnapped?”
“I doubt they would’ve had the time.” Peter squeezes my hands reassuringly, then releases them and rises to his feet. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a smartphone and hands it to me. “Call them, so you can give them your version of the story first.”
“My version of the story? And what version is that?” The phone feels like a brick in my hand, its weight magnified by the knowledge that if I say the wrong thing, I could literally kill my dad. “What can I tell them that will make this in any way okay?”
My tone is caustic, but my question is genuine. I can’t imagine what I can say to lessen my parents’ panic over my disappearance, how I can explain what the FBI is about to tell them—especially since I don’t know how much the agents will reveal.
The plane chooses that moment to hit a pocket of turbulence, and Peter sits down next to me. “Tell them you met a man… a man you fell in love with.” He covers my knee with his warm palm, his metallic gaze mesmerizing in its intensity. “Tell them that for the first time in your life, you decided to do something crazy and irresponsible. That you’re fine, but for the next few weeks, you’ll be traveling around the world with your lover.”
“The next few weeks?” A wild hope blooms inside me. “Are you saying that—”
“No. You won’t be back in a few weeks. But they don’t need to know that yet.”
The hope withers and dies, the crushing despair returning. “I’ll never see them again, will I?”
“You will.” His hand squeezes my knee. “At some point, when it’s safe.”
“And when will that be?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out.”
“We?” A bitter laugh escapes my throat. “Are you under the impression that this is some kind of partnership? That we kidnapped me together?”
Peter’s gaze hardens. “It can be a partnership, Sara. If you want it to be.”
“Oh, really?” I push his hand off my knee. “Then turn this f*cking plane around, partner. I want to go home.”
“That’s impossible, and you know that.” His bristle-darkened jaw flexes.
“Is it? Why? Because you love to f*ck me? Or because you f*cking love me?” My voice rises as I jump to my feet, hands balled at my sides. I can see his men in the seats behind us, their faces stony as they stare out the window, pretending not to listen, but I don’t care. I’m past embarrassment, past shame; all I feel is rage.
I’ve never wanted to hurt a living person as much as I want to hurt Peter at this moment.
My tormentor’s gaze is dark, his expression hard as he stands up. “Sit down, Sara,” he says harshly, reaching for me as the plane hits another bump and I grab at the window wall to steady myself. “It’s not safe.” He takes my arm to force me back into the seat, and my other hand acts of its own accord.
With the phone still clutched in my fist, I take a swing at him—and don’t miss, because at that moment, the plane dips again, throwing us both off-balance. With an audible thud, the phone crashes into Peter’s face, the impact of the hit jarring my bones and snapping his head to the side.
I don’t know who’s more shocked that I managed to land a blow, me or Peter’s men.
I can see their incredulous stares as Peter slowly, and very deliberately, releases my arm and wipes at the blood trickling down his cheekbone. The metal shell of the phone must’ve cut his skin; that, or the unexpected turbulence lent momentum to my blow, intensifying the force behind it.
His eyes meet mine, and my heart jumps into my throat at the icy rage shimmering in the silvery depths. Warily, I back away, the phone slipping out of my numb fingers to hit the floor with a metallic thunk.
I haven’t forgotten what Peter is capable of, what he did to me when we first met.
I can only take two steps before my back presses against the wall of the pilot’s cabin, ending my retreat. I have nowhere to run on this plane, no place to hide, and fear tightens my stomach as he steps closer, his furious gaze holding mine captive as he braces his palms on the wall on both sides of me, caging me between his muscular arms.
“I…” I should say that I’m sorry, that I didn’t mean it, but I can’t bring myself to voice the lie, so I clamp my lips shut before I can make it worse by telling him how much I hate him.