And now that she was awake, seeing her sweet little ass in those shorts and her pert breasts pressing against that thin tank, I could add sexually frustrated to my list of stresses as well.
Since that situation clearly wasn’t about to change anytime soon, my only hope was to slough off a little of this stress with a run. I cut through the kitchen and told Sela I was heading down the beach. She scowled in disapproval because I wasn’t going after Natalie, but I ignored her.
I had a plan, and I was going to stick to it. Natalie would come around. I knew her better than she thought. Regardless of how angry she was at the moment, I was confident she’d bend to my will.
She had to. Because I wouldn’t accept any other alternative now.
Eight miles later, I finally called my run quits. I wanted to get back before Natalie.
By the time I made it up from the beach and into the house, the sun had set on the horizon and darkness was already pushing in. I was hot, sweaty, and still strung tighter than a drum, but at least I wasn’t desperate to shake some sense into Natalie as I’d wanted to do earlier. Unfortunately, though, all I’d been able to think about as I’d been running was those short shorts she’d been wearing when she’d left and how long it had been since I’d had my hands on her cute little ass.
I let the screen door slap closed behind me and crossed to the fridge in the wide kitchen. The scents of something cheesy and spicy filled the room as I grabbed a water bottle and guzzled half of it. I was pretty sure Sela had made enchiladas—one of my favorite meals—and I was already running through ways to get Natalie to agree to sit down to dinner with me so we could talk things out.
Footsteps sounded on the tile behind me. Lowering the water bottle, I glanced over my shoulder to where Haych, who managed the grounds on the island, stood in the doorway, a piece of paper in his wide hands. His thick dark hair was mussed and damp at the edges from perspiration, and his normally relaxed brows were drawn together in what I immediately knew was concern.
“What?” I asked, turning toward him. Haych rarely came into the main house. It was Sela’s domain. My thoughts immediately went to Natalie. “What happened to her?”
“Nothing, Mister Luc. At least not yet.” He crossed the kitchen and handed me the paper. “This just came in on the wire.”
I scanned the weather alert, and my heart dropped into my stomach. The low-pressure system we’d been sure wasn’t going to hit us had turned and was rapidly growing in strength. My gaze shot to the wide windows and the dark clouds already gathering on the horizon that I hadn’t noticed during my run. Hell, I hadn’t even been looking because I’d been thinking about all the ways I planned to get Natalie naked and beneath me once she finally came to her senses.
Tingles rushed across my skin, tightening my shoulders. Systems down here could move in without warning and do a hell of a lot more damage than expected.
I looked back at Haych. “Is she back yet?”
“No, sir.”
Fuck. I pushed past him and strode into my office, where I flipped open my laptop and scanned each camera on the island.
No sign of Natalie.
Panic pushed at my chest, but I told myself to stay calm. She hadn’t left. She was out there somewhere. Probably relaxing under a palm tree. It was a hell of a lot hotter inland than here on the beach. I just had to find her before the storm hit.
Haych was standing in the doorway when I turned, already awaiting orders. I grabbed the two-way radio from the corner of my desk. “Where’s Sela?”
“At her place. When she heard about the storm, she raced back there to bring in her dogs.”
That explained why she hadn’t been in the kitchen. Sela was an animal lover. She had two mutts she’d picked up in Tahiti and adopted. She fawned over those dogs more than I’d seen women fawn over babies.
There were two caretaker residences on the island, and both were set inland a half-mile away from the main house. For a moment, I wondered if Natalie could be with Sela, but quickly dismissed the thought. If she’d found Sela’s or Haych’s homes, they would have let me know.
I pushed past him and headed for the front door. “Strap down anything that could get picked up by the wind. I don’t know how rough it’s going to get tonight.”
“Yes, sir.”
I moved out onto the deck, jogged down the steps, and crossed to the shed where Haych kept the tools and landscaping equipment. Shoving one side of the massive sliding door open, I spotted the four-wheeler and grabbed the keys from the hook on the wall. “When you’re done, go back to your place and make sure Sela’s okay.”
“What about you?” Haych stepped back as I rolled the vehicle out of the building. “And Miss Natalie?”
“I’ll find her. Keep your radio on just in case, though.”
“Will do,” Haych said. “I’m sure you’ll get to her before the storm hits.”
I nodded as I slung a leg over the seat and started the ignition. The engine revved, echoing in my ears like an ominous warning. Haych moved farther back as I flipped the headlight on, shifted into gear, and tore away from the house.
That knot of stress twisted tighter in my gut. I hadn’t lied to Haych. I was pretty sure I’d find Natalie in time—the island wasn’t that big—I just didn’t know if I could convince her to come back with me voluntarily.
Or if I’d have to drag her back against her will before the storm turned deadly.
Chapter Three
Natalie
I was ready to scream.
After two hours swatting at bugs in the humid jungle, climbing hillsides that left me covered in dirt, and sweating profusely in the sweltering heat, I was no closer to freedom than I’d been before.
The highest peak on the island had given me a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of my surroundings that had left me more exasperated than before. Water, everywhere. So much water I couldn’t see any other islands anywhere close. I wasn’t swimming to freedom even if I could swim, and because this island was devoid of any other houses or structures or signs of life that I could see, there was no going for help.
Help also wasn’t coming by plane. The terrain was hilly and covered in thick vines and dense trees. I hadn’t spotted anywhere long or flat enough for a landing strip, which meant the only way I was getting out of here was by helicopter or boat. But just my luck, there wasn’t even a boat anchored at the dock near Luc’s stupid villa or in the adjacent U-shaped bay.
I blew the hair out of my eyes and edged closer to the cliff that dropped straight down to ginormous waves crashing against jagged rocks. I had no doubt Luc had brought me here on purpose. He knew I didn’t like water. He knew I couldn’t swim. Any hope I’d had of escaping had been ripped from my grasp the moment he’d brought me here, just as my choices had been wrenched from my hold the moment Luc had come after me.
Images of that night in Idaho flashed in front of my eyes, making my heart beat faster. The burly bald man who’d attacked me in my bedroom. The way I’d broken free of his hold and run, only to be slammed into my kitchen cupboards from behind. The pain spiraling through my head and back and entire body as I hit the ground. The sounds of glass shattering. And Luc appearing in my line of sight when I’d struggled to look up from the tile floor to see what was happening around me.
He saved your life, a tiny voice whispered in the back of my mind.
My skin heated as I stared down at the frothy surf pounding those rocks into sand. That was true. He had saved me. If he hadn’t shown up, that man would most likely have killed me. But as quickly as the thought hit, another replaced it. One that spurred my temper and made me whip away from the view of the pristine turquoise water.
If it weren’t for Luc and his lies, I wouldn’t have needed saving. No matter what nice thing I thought he’d done, I could never forget the fact that after he’d saved me, he’d drugged me, kidnapped me, and forced me into a marriage I’d never wanted.
The urge to claw that vile word off my finger overwhelm
ed me as I made my way back down the hillside and into the heat of the jungle, but I resisted only because I didn’t want a giant scar in its place. As soon as I was off this island, though, I was having it removed. Finger tattoos faded quickly, didn’t they? I was sure I’d heard that from a college friend.
I pushed aside the thick vines and picked my way carefully down the hillside. My muscles ached from exertion. My feet hurt from rocks and tree roots stabbing into the flesh of my soles. I swiped at my forehead with the back of my arm again, grazing the scab above my eyebrow I’d gotten from the fight that night in my kitchen, hating how badly I was sweating, hating how tired I was, hating everything about this miserable situation.
The exhaustion finally got to me, and I found a spot near the base of a palm tree to rest. Birds cawed above, and the wind whistled through the leaves as I lowered myself to the ground, leaned back against the trunk, closed my eyes, and just focused on breathing.
I had Luc to thank for how crappy I felt too. Whatever drugs he’d given me—and he must have given me quite a few to keep me groggy and out of it these last few days—were still in my system, making me light-headed, weak, and hotter than hell.
I tugged at my sticky tank, pulling it away from my chest. Something in my left arm pinched with the movement, and I opened my eyes and looked down. Alarm bells rang in my head when I noticed the bandage across my left inner biceps and the purple bruising fanning out beneath.
Sitting forward, I reached for the edge of the bandage and tugged it off. Underneath, I found a small red mark, like an injection site. My chest tightened as I pressed the fingers of my right hand against the spot. Pain radiated outward, making me wince, but I didn’t stop. I felt all around the bruised area only to discover there was some kind of object beneath my skin. A thin tube, roughly an inch and a half long, right below the surface.
My fuzzy mind spun as I stared down at my arm. And when the truth registered, my mouth fell open as if I’d just been slapped in the face.
One of the girls who’d worked for me at the boutique in Boise had gotten something similar placed in her arm a few months ago. When I’d asked her about it, she’d told me it was a birth control implant.
Shock morphed to absolute disbelief. Kidnapping me, drugging me, and forcing me into an unwanted marriage hadn’t been enough for Luciano Salvatici? He’d implanted a foreign object in my body? A birth control device, as if I’d ever want to have sex with him again?
The fury finally got to me, and I let loose a scream I couldn’t hold back. I wanted to strangle him. I wanted to hurt him in a way he’d never recover from. As my vocal cords gave out and the scream died in my throat, I dropped my hands to the dirt at my sides, realizing neither would happen anytime soon. I didn’t have the strength to haul my ass off the ground right now. And I had him to thank for that as well.
Breathing deeply, I tried to keep the sickness from surging up my throat, but nothing worked. All I felt was a rolling nausea and a weighty fatigue I couldn’t shake. All I knew was that I wasn’t going back to his stupid house. I wasn’t going back to him ever. And there was no way in hell I’d ever let him keep me locked up like a prisoner.
My mind spun back to the tattoo on that girl who’d been in my room when I’d awoken. In Italy, after I’d frantically researched the Salvatici House, looking for any indication what Luc had told me was true, I’d learned that all beta kittens—the women the men in the Salvatici House used for their deviant pleasures—were marked with leopard-print tattoos.
Reality hit me like a two-by-four to the forehead. The girl I’d awoken to find in my room was a kitten. She was Luc’s kitten.
My stomach cramped, and I wrapped my arms around my middle and leaned forward, afraid I was going to vomit. None of this was real. I rocked forward and back, trying to convince myself this couldn’t be my life, that I wasn’t really stuck on an island with a man I now hated more than I’d ever stupidly loved him. At some point I had to wake up from this nightmare, didn’t I?
But as the sickness eased and darkness circled around me, I already knew the answer.
This was real. It was my reality, and regardless of what Luc had done to me, at the end of the day I had no one to blame for my predicament but myself.
I was the one who’d gone to New York to find answers about my friend Elena’s death. I was the one who’d been convinced her death wasn’t accidental and that someone had killed her. I’d thought Luc held the key to those answers. Even though I’d told myself to be careful around him, even though I’d known virtually nothing about the man and what he was capable of, I’d fallen for him. And that falling hadn’t just distracted me from my goal, it had derailed my entire life until it was the reason I was now sitting in the middle of a deserted jungle, trying not to go insane.
I breathed deep and squeezed my eyes tight, but neither kept the tears from leaking past my lashes. I couldn’t stay here. I wouldn’t. There was no way I could leave my future in the hands of a man who’d clearly never loved me. I had to find a way out. I had to get off this island and away from Luciano Salvatici once and for all.
Because I was afraid if I didn’t, the desperation would send me searching for another way to be free of him. And I was terrified of where that might take me. And what it could possibly force me to do.
“Natalie!”
The distant sound of my name pulled my eyes open. I blinked several times, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I saw dirt. I saw leaves skittering over the ground. I saw dark, curly hair whipping across my face, blocking my view.
Groggy, I tried to push myself up off the damp earth, but my arms were heavy, and my head felt light. My vision came and went. Giving up trying to see, I rolled to my back. The sky above was dark, but, squinting, I could tell the canopy above me whipped back and forth from the force of a wind I hadn’t noticed before.
“Natalie!”
Again, the muffled sound of my name met my ears, drifting on the wind like a song. I turned my head to try to see where it was coming from but couldn’t make out anything more than fuzzy shapes in the darkness.
I was floating in a dream. Glancing over the jungle as if from a place from outside my body. Nothing felt real. Not the ground beneath me. Not the sky above. Not even my own skin.
“Natalie? Dio dannato. You need to get up. There’s a storm moving in.”
Footsteps pounded close. I was still having trouble seeing, but I recognized that voice. I recognized Luc’s voice. I just didn’t know what Luc was doing in my dream. Or better yet, what I was doing in this dream.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to go.”
Go. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea, only I couldn’t make my muscles work. And something in the back of my head told me his orders were the very last I should follow.
Curls whipped in front of my eyes, messing with my vision. Luc’s fuzzy shape grew closer. I recognized disdain in his stormy eyes. I tried to shift back, away from him, but the only thing my body wanted to do was groan.
Groan. Now that was a funny word. An even funnier sound.
“Merda.” Something cool wrapped around my wrist. “I said come on. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Pressure tightened around my wrist, pulling my torso off the ground. My head grew light, my vision fuzzy. Groaning again, I relaxed and flopped back down on the dirt.
“Natalie?”
Pressure landed against my forehead. A cool pressure that felt so good, I closed my eyes and tried to turn toward it.
“Dio mio. You’re burning up.”
The cool weight against my forehead lifted, and something solid gripped my shoulders on both sides. My body shook.
“Angioletto, open your eyes and look at me.”
I didn’t want to open my eyes. I just wanted to sleep. I angled my head to the side, searching for that cool pressure again.
The grip at my shoulders released, and then something cold pressed against my body in different spots, moving quickly over my skin. Too qu
ickly to cool me down. Dammit, why was it moving so fast?
“Figlio di Puttana.” The pressure came to a stop against my calf. “When did you cut your leg?”
Cut my leg? My brain was clearly short-circuiting. I hadn’t cut my leg.
A crack sounded loudly above me. Luc swore again. Something wet splashed against my skin, making my body jerk in surprise.
Water. My lips curled when I realized it was fat droplets of rain falling on my overheated skin.
“Hold on, angioletto. I’ll take care of you.” Luc’s voice was close, but I couldn’t make out how close. Nor did I care. Because I was drifting again. My body rocking. My arms and legs floating as if free on the waves.
I’ll take care of you…
The words echoed in my head, mixing with the lash of wind and rain and the thump-thump-thump of something close to my ear.
I’ll take care of you.
My heart told me to trust the words, but my fuzzy head fought them. Somehow I knew they were a lie. Just as I knew Luciano Salvatici was the last person I could ever count on.
But as darkness circled in and my head grew even lighter, even that thought slipped from my grasp until there was nothing but silence.
Silence and a sinking feeling I would never be free again.
Chapter Four
Luc
I was frantic to get back to the house.