Page 50 of Ice-Cold Obsession

“You should leave. I’ll say I came too late and you were already gone. They’ll take out their anger on me, but I’ll survive. They still need me, so it won’t be too bad. And they’ll let you go since they don’t care. They’ll find someone else.”

I frown at him. “You’d risk their anger to save me?”

“Yeah.” His gaze doesn’t waver.

I believe him. He wouldn’t be sabotaging himself for no reason. He wouldn’t be throwing games and ruining his own reputation and career for nothing.

It would be easy for me to just leave, go home, and pretend none of this ever happened.

But I can’t do easy, because I can’t imagine leaving Gabriel on his own or getting someone else in trouble. Even though I don’t want to admit it just yet, I’ve fallen for him. I came here to destroy him, and instead I fell in love with him.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says. “I was on my own from the start, so I can manage.”

I cross the room and place my hands on his face. His skin is warm under my palms, and I lean down and kiss him. My lips press against his, soft at first, then deeper. When I pull back, I look into his eyes. “I can’t do that.”

He stares at me, his brow furrowed, his mouth slightly open, his eyes searching mine.

I look at him, still tied up, and an idea forms in my mind. “Do your mafia guys have an enemy or a rival, or someone who could be messing with them?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Great. I have an idea. Is that guy who’s ordering you around full of himself and doesn’t think too much?”

“Yeah, obviously. If hedidthink, he’d know not to risk injuring me when he needs me to play. But he doesn’t. He’s all ego.”

“Perfect. Let’s pretend you got caught by the enemy.”

I grab his phone from the desk and move behind him. I take his tied hand and press his finger to the screen until it unlocks.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Wait.” I grab a tie from his closet and wrap it around his mouth, gagging him.

He makes a muffled sound of protest, but I ignore him. I hold up the phone and start recording a video. Him tied to the chair, gagged, and looking disheveled and panicked.

“Perfect,” I say out loud, stopping the recording.

Then I untie the knots binding his wrists, my fingers fumbling with the rope until it finally comes loose. He pulls the gag out of his mouth.

“What the hell is your plan?” he asks.

“Let’s hope this works. Because even if they don’t think their enemy kidnapped you, they can think someone else did. Someone who knew about you.”

“And then what?”

“Come here.” I climb onto the bed and gesture for him to follow.

He gets up from the chair and sits next to me. I wrap my arms around him and hold him close. His body is tense, his shoulders rigid, so I run my fingers through his hair.

“It all needs to be done quickly so they don’t have much time to think,” I say.

“What if they don’t take the bait?”

“Then nothing. You’ll say you escaped, didn’t see anyone, and that’s that. We’ll blur the background in the video so they can’t tell it’s your room.”

He’s quiet for a moment, his breath warm against my neck. Then he pulls back slightly to look at me. “You’re insane.”

“Maybe. But it might work.”