Page 9

With the much too bewildering feel of his fingers on my jaw, I tore my stunned gaze from where Nik had stood a second ago. Now, he was gone again, with only the terse warning to be ready in half an hour.

Ready for what, exactly? Since thin air couldn’t give me any answers, curiosity made me open one of the boxes he and his men had hauled in. Then sucked in a surprised breath. It was like Christmas morning. So many beautiful clothes and accessories lay neatly wrapped in thin tissue paper. Summery dresses, strappy sandals, cute rompers in every color, lingerie sets, and a box full of coordinating jewelry.

Almost as if he wanted me to pack for a vacation on an island. But the next box had cashmere sweaters, wool jackets, jeans, and even ski pants. I didn’t bother with the third box and sat back down on the edge of the bed in confusion. Still not quite believing any of this was happening, I went back to devising an escape plan.

That quickly went the way of my previous escape plan, because I couldn’t see any way out. I couldn’t muscle my way past Nik, who was the size of a mythical god, or his many armed guards. They certainly wouldn’t lethally shoot me, at least I hoped not, but what if there were stun guns in their arsenal? After only one month in LA, I had already seen some cops take down a fleeing criminal in my shady neighborhood. Getting tased didn’t look fun.

Even if I managed to get past everyone, out the door, and beyond the gate, it was a good half mile to the next house. I’d never make it.

Instead of calmly coming up with a plan, I began to spiral. Of course, Nik wouldn’t let his men tase me. Would he? No, he had gone through with this ruse to protect me. I had to keep believing that. Before I knew it, Nik stuck his head back in, looking from me to the boxes, completely flustered that I didn’t do what he told me.

Good.

I couldn’t help but give him a defiant raise of my eyebrows, as if to ask what he expected when he didn’t tell me anything other than be ready to leave in half an hour. He rolled his eyes and began tossing things from the summer box into the waiting suitcase. Handing it to the guard, he turned back to me and put his hands on his hips.

“Do you want to walk or be carried?”

Yeah, I was well aware of how that conversation ended, so jumped up and scurried past him into the hall. I followed the guard who carried my suitcase, with Nik taking up the rear. I wished I’d changed into something more comfortable than the crisp white dress, and felt his eyes on me the whole way down the stairs. For a split second, I wondered if I slid down the wide banister if I could get far enough ahead of them to make a break out the open front door at the end of the foyer.

Another guard moved past on the porch, putting an end to that fun little daydream.

Nik remained silent on the drive, and my pride wouldn’t let me ask questions, which he was sure to dodge anyway. We ended up at a private airfield a little while later, an imposing black jet in the distance with people scurrying around it, getting it ready to roll.

“Is that for us?” I gulped.

Nik nodded, guiding me toward a small building while we waited. He didn’t look pleased we weren’t immediately taking off, but smiled warmly at me as he called for someone to bring me a coffee.

I had never been on a private jet. Hell, my only experience on a commercial airplane was on the flight out here to LA with my contest winnings. I was so overwhelmed and confused that I gratefully accepted the paper cup full of steaming caffeine. There wasn’t any time to get it together and consider an escape plan while I was out in public, though Nik seemed pretty chummy with everyone in the building anyway.

Within ten minutes, we were on the plane, and barely any time after that, we were gliding through the air. The hum of the engine was anything but soothing, and the comfortable seats might as well have been laced with thorns. I was much too on edge to relax like Nik suggested as he settled into one of the wide leather seats with a glass of wine. I only sat down because the pilot ordered it for takeoff, then popped right back up again to pace.

“Why don’t you get changed?” he suggested.

It was exactly what I wanted to do, but as soon as he said it, I huffed and kept pacing up and down the short aisle.

“Or, don’t,” he said with a maddening chuckle.

Realizing I was being childish, I unzipped the suitcase he’d haphazardly packed for me and rummaged through the selection. My face blazed with heat as I saw how many of the slinky lingerie sets he’d grabbed. Finding a pair of flowy linen pants and a silk t-shirt in the bunch, I crammed myself into the bathroom and changed. It was a relief to get the wedding dress off, and I was in the kind of mood to crumple it up and stuff it down the trash chute. Leaving it hanging from the hook on the back of the door instead, I went back out to resume my anxious trip up and down the aisle.

Nik gave me an appreciative once over as I passed, and I scowled at him, stopping to stare him down.

“Okay, now you can tell me where we’re going, right? Or do I have to keep guessing until we land?”

He had the audacity to look at me like I was nuts, calmly answering, “Fiji. That’s where you wanted to go, isn’t it?”

My heart raced, and I gaped at him. We were leaving the country.

I didn’t have a passport. Why would I? I’d never left Peachtree, Georgia, before. The one begrudging family vacation I remember my parents took me on was to a campground an hour’s drive away from our house.

It hit me then that he wasn’t taking me to Fiji solely because I’d requested it, and sank into the seat across from him.

“If Arkadi Mikhailov is so dangerous, you think we should leave the country to get away from him, we need to go to the police.”

He snickered. “This is beyond the police. And they aren’t usually too inclined to help me, anyway.”

He still didn’t look the least bit bothered. Feeling smug for the first time to have something over him, I let him know I didn’t have a passport. I waited for the immense satisfaction of seeing the panic on his face over his stupid blunder. Instead, he only shrugged.

“Don’t worry about that either,” he told me, infuriatingly not panicking.

“Who do you think you are?” I wailed, popping out of my seat.

He looked up with confusion written all over his face, then took my hand to gently tug me back down.

“Do you really not know who you’ve been working for?”

“Aren’t you Nikolai Fokin?” I asked, close to passing out. His smile was meant to be calming, but I was anything but calm. What kind of man was whisking me away to a foreign country on a private jet?

“Yes, that’s me,” he answered. “But you don’t know who I am? Or anything about my family?”

He seemed awash in disbelief, and I bristled at what felt like an accusation. “I know you own Khoroshiy and probably have some other stuff going on,” I answered. “But I didn’t exactly do a background check on you when you hired me.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like my family’s existence is a big secret. I know how gossipy my staff is.”

“Well, I was taught not to be nosy,” I said. And I’d been turning down most of the invitations to socialize outside of the kitchen due to penny-pinching. During meal service, it was much too busy to shoot the breeze. My little bit of free time was spent catching up on sleep or testing out new recipes, not combing the internet for information on the people around me. It had never crossed my mind that I had a reason to. “Who the hell are you?” I demanded when he kept looking at me with trepidation in his normally steely eyes.

“Who do you think I am?” he asked. “Really.”

“I guess I thought you were just a guy trying to protect me from a really bad man,” I said, leaning back into my seat.

Nik leaned closer, taking up my space with his big body. His brow furrowed in a way that had me wondering if he was the one I should have been worrying about.