by Tiffany Sala
He was seriously trying to impress me with a war story after keeping me up half the night being kidnapped.
“That other guy was only seeking half the money I was there for too, a complete clown. But of course he was ready to go postal, and the only thing that could have made the situation worse was if he realised I was a threat to him getting what he wanted, so quick as a flash I dumped my suit jacket behind a chair in the debtor’s lounge and put my hands behind my back like this, head down like this, made like a butler…”
He had actually gotten off the bed to show me. I put my hand up and said, “Stop!” and maybe it was just him getting back into his butler character, but he shut his mouth right away. “I am not listening to any more of this while I’m still here in my pyjamas. You need to get out and let me get dressed, and then we can talk some more.”
Devin took a step towards the door, then turned back. That character had clearly worn off already. “If you are at all inclined to support my plan, it might be a useful information-gathering exercise for me to stay and—”
“No!” The horrifying thing was, I might have considered agreeing if there was anything in that suggestion that seemed even a little lascivious. But this was clearly just another angle of him trying to strike this deal. In some twisted part of his mind he was there thinking if he stayed and stared dispassionately at me getting my clothes off, and I was kind of okay with that, it would further his agenda. “You need to get out.”
He frowned at me. “What, no please?”
There was just the slightest hint, in his voice, of— Well, I’d actually managed to forget, in some way, that he was essentially a criminal who could do all sorts of terrible things to me if he wanted. I didn’t think he wanted to, but it seemed like he was capable of a lot if he felt he wasn’t being sufficiently respected. He seemed a little amused by my unwillingness to fall over in a sobbing heap at his feet, but he was clearly not motivated to be nice to me for the sake of getting back his money… so if I didn’t want to end up disappeared in the bush somewhere out here, or maybe with a new cabin built over my remains, I had better be balanced in my attitude.
“Please, Devin. I just want to feel a bit normal again. Surely that’s a courtesy you can offer to someone you’re trying to get to marry you.”
Devin nodded and resumed his course to the door. “Entirely acceptable. I will give you thirty minutes before I return.”
I let out a big breath once the door shut behind him. I hadn’t realised just how tense I was getting in his presence. I had to shut my eyes and take a few meditative breaths, shake my arms and hands out, before I could even coordinate them enough to open the case he’d given me.
Once I did, I could feel my eyes bulging. These were ultra-designer brands, and he hadn’t bothered taking any of the tags off so I now knew the prices of all the items were in the three-to-four-digits range, but what else should I have expected from a man who was willing to pay me ten million to not even go through with marrying him?
Of course, ten million was not the smallest part of what Devin O’Hare was worth, according to his own claims. I couldn’t go judging such an offer by my own standards or I might end up actually selling myself short.
Who was I kidding? Ten million dollars would change my life, regardless of what it would do to his. My parents might have been loaded, but I’d realised pretty quickly after I turned eighteen that they considered it their money, and that wasn’t going to change until I did something to ‘earn’ it. What exactly that was, I didn’t know. They only made me aware of all the ways in which I’d fallen short… which would have been a lot more useful to me if they hadn’t started doing it after they let me slack off on my schooling for years and then finally drop out. Before then, they didn’t seem to care, which made it sort of hard for me to care. Even now, they were probably more likely to figure out something was wrong when they checked the security system remotely as opposed to actually trying to call me.
Devin had a big damn point: if my parents did get themselves killed by someone they owed money to, say, it was entirely likely there was either no money left to be had… or that once the houses and cars and my mother’s earrings and necklaces had been sold off to make things balance, it would turn out they hadn’t even included me in their will. As their daughter I’d probably prove entitled to that money anyway… but how fucking degrading to have to fight for it.
My eyes were filling with tears for the first time in hours, and it had very little to do with being kidnapped.
I couldn’t let myself wonder about this. I had to get dressed into these clothes without thinking too much about how Devin could possibly have even gotten the right size of bra and panties for me, let alone how he would then already know what bra and panties I was wearing, and then…
I became fixed in my decisions as I began to look more put-together in the mirror, moving from changing my clothes to combing out my hair, washing my face, and making a point of trying a little of all the very expensive still-wrapped cosmetics in the package Devin had put together for me. If this man who had violated my sense of safety wanted me to agree to marry him to make a point to my parents… well, maybe they deserved that. But he was going to have to really work to convince me that was something I wanted to go along with.
Chapter Five
“I have a feeling you’re not against a bit of bondage play,” I said as soon as I opened the door to the bedroom. I’d decided I was going to be the one to come and find him. I needed to hold my own as much as possible still, and this seemed like one way to do it without getting him angry at me.
Devin looked up from the little card table he was sitting at, and slipped the black book he’d been examining into his shirt pocket. “Why is that?”
For a moment I couldn’t reply, distracted by how ridiculously out of place he looked at that table in his sleek suit.
Well actually, he looked out of place in the entire scenario. Everything here was very plain and homey, a bit like one of those caravan sets on old episodes of Home and Away, not the sort of scene a multi-millionaire would tolerate even on holiday. It was a bit too downmarket even for me.
I forced myself to get back to the point. “These.” I raised one foot and wiggled it at the ankle. I was surprised the contraption attached to it, a shoe consisting mostly of straps, stayed in place.
Watching me wrung a tiny bit of amusement out of him, which only added to my aggravation. He didn’t even bother denying my assertion. “I suppose you would have to actually be going to relatively prestigious events to find a use for a nice pair of heels.”
“I wouldn’t wear them no matter where I had to go,” I told him. At home, I liked to use a well-worn pair of ballet flats so I could move around the house silently. If I had to leave the house, a pair of fashion sneakers achieved the same effect—as well as looking adorable paired with a well-fitting T-shirt and skirt. Men found it hard to resist the combination of cuteness and the suggestion of being down-to-earth in a young woman. I did have a pair of sensible heels—no more than an inch, not these giraffe monstrosities—I occasionally pulled out for parties and the like, but in the past year I’d maybe used them once when my parents took me out for my birthday. I couldn’t even think where they were at present.
Devin was giving me that thoughtful look again. “I hope you’re going to get used to wearing these ones by tonight. We’re going out. Somewhere nice.”
I stalked over, grabbed the second chair from the table, dragged it over to the door and sat down in it. “The only place we are going together from here is back to my home.”
Devin’s look was pitying. “There’s no point in my taking you directly home, Julia. Even if it were an appropriate time to call your parents, they’re not going to be getting back for days. Far better to stay with me until they return, gather a bit more information about what you’d be signing up for.”
“Let myself be persuaded to do whatever you want, you mean.”
“It wouldn’t hurt if y
ou did, Julia.”
“That completely remains to be seen,” I couldn’t help shooting back at him, which got an amused noise but not the sort of fire I’d hoped for. Devin got up with leisurely movements, waiting until he was completely upright to check his watch.
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re ready. We’re going to have to get in the car right away to make it in time for our reservation. You’ll still be a little underdressed, but when you look like that I doubt there’ll be any objections.”
I just frowned at him, even though it was pretty obvious from previous context where this conversation was going. “Oh,” said Devin, pretty blatantly playing innocent, “I booked us in at the revolving restaurant in the city. I would have consulted you, but you seemed in quite a state earlier, and I don’t like to be so impolite as to impose myself upon the staff at a late date, even though I know they are not going to refuse me.”
I was sitting down with my hands on my hips. “And you don’t have any personal knowledge of the venues that are out there anyway,” Devin added.
I’d been out of my room for less than five minutes, and I’d had enough. I maintained eye contact with him as I leaned forward to fiddle with one of my shoes, finally got it unbuckled with a struggle, and threw it at him with some force.
I stiffened in my chair as I realised the thing was flying further than I planned. I’d just wanted to land it at his feet, make a smug little point… but he had to take a quick step backwards to avoid it actually landing on his feet.
“Sorry,” I muttered, feeling really stupid now in my nice clothing and one strappy shoe. “But I’m really sick of you—”
“Damn fucking right you’re sorry.” Devin’s face hadn’t changed much, but I realised I could tell he was angry. There were feelings buried under that strangely innocent poker face, maybe even more so when he didn’t reveal a lot. There was an interesting thought. “If I’m going to treat you well, I expect you to show me basic respect. If you’ve got a problem with something I’m doing, use words and not some petty little show of violence. Because maybe I don’t want to even fucking pretend to marry a woman like that… and maybe you’re not going to like the consequences if that offer is taken off the table.”
“I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to actually…” He was starting to look amused again. I didn’t know exactly what had kept him from retaliating as he’d threatened earlier, but maybe it was better for me to try to move the conversation away from the actual incident. “If you want me to go along with anything for you without fighting the whole way, I need you to stop making those cracks about how I never leave my house. If you’ve really been watching me you know it’s not true, for a start, but then it just really bothers me to think that you’ve been watching me. So it’s not getting you anything you want.”
“Getting you in a little temper is exactly what I want.” Devin scooped up my tossed shoe. I froze as he knelt at my feet. I wanted to back the hell out of there, but of course that was probably exactly what he wanted too. He didn’t have to use all of his threatening force to keep me in line, and he was happy for me to realise it.
I tried not to wiggle my toes in nervousness as he took my bare foot in his hands, running one smooth fingertip along the edge of a scratch I’d picked up in the fuss the night before. I never would have thought that socks would seem like a necessity to keep me feeling safe.
“It’s nothing,” I spoke up as his examination grew uncomfortably long. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“We will have to be more careful with you in future,” said Devin. “Perhaps if I treat you like a princess, you will behave a little more like a proper lady.”
He slipped the shoe back on my foot and fed the long ankle strap through the buckle, his eyes staying on mine the whole time. “If this is how you’re going to act about the whole business, it’s a good thing these are the shoes I selected.”
I maintained the stare, giving him no material to work with, but of course he didn’t really need it.
“Because maybe you’re right and I am at least a little open to the whips-and-chains lifestyle… but I rather relish the idea of you trying to use them as weapons against me too.”
Of course, the end of this was that I was so turned around I just hobbled out the door with him and got in the car he had waiting. The funny thing was, he seemed preoccupied too, staring off into space with his expression shifting like he was engrossed in a discussion with himself… or maybe coming up with a new plan. And that might be one more thing for me to worry about.
“There’s just one thing that surprises me,” I spoke up. We’d been riding in silence for maybe ten minutes, and I’d been struggling most of that time to come up with an opening that would put Devin at a disadvantage. I wasn’t particularly feeling this one so far, but it was the best I had.
“I’m eager to hear about it.”
“Why all those goons were involved in the kidnapping process in the first place.” I tried to refer to it as vaguely as possible, the kidnapping rather than my kidnapping, but my voice trembled as if I’d been straight about it, and there was something about the change to his profile as he focused on the road that told me he’d heard. “What I mean is, you obviously don’t need them to pin a girl down.”
If I’d been hoping to shame him with that crass imagery… well, it didn’t get me anywhere. “To be quite honest,” said Devin, “I don’t like running the risk of getting scratched or bitten. Young women are such wildcats. After the initial shock wears off they’re much more reasonable and can usually be persuaded to keep their nails to themselves, but until then…” He shook his head with the sort of smile that was usually supposed to come with remembering good times.
“What you’re telling me is you’ve got a bit more experience with kidnappings than you initially let on.”
He shook his head. “Not personally. Of course I am familiar with more incidents where it’s been necessary to take women than the average young man you would have encountered in your previous life, but I truly don’t go in for it myself. It’s messy, the sort of thing where you can get yourself into a lot more trouble than you need in your life. Sometimes those young women die, when the kidnapping goes wrong.”
“I know you’re not going to want to hear this,” I said, my feet fidgeting in the seatwell of the car. It was impossible to get in any comfortable position in those shoes. “But all your posturing about women is such bullshit. You’re the most sexist pig I’ve ever encountered, and I’m not as much of a cloistered princess as you’ve decided I am from a couple weeks of stalking. I’ve been to all those parties where young men feel free to be the most sexist pigs they have in them.”
“What made you stop?”
“Excuse me?”
“The parties. Why did you stop going?”
“This isn’t a Q&A session about my life. I’m not the one with documented issues here. And for the record, I thought we made an arrangement that you would stop poking me about aspects of my behaviour you don’t know anything about except through creepy means.”
He threw his hands up in the air for a moment. “Did I poke?”
“Please leave your hands on the wheel.” I could see it now, the movie they’d make of my life: just as I thought I was going to be able to get away from this guy, we both ended up dead in a horror smash on an otherwise quiet highway, mowed down so thoroughly by an unexpected log truck we couldn’t be separated even in death.
“Such a demanding girl.” But he already had his hands back in position. “Now, did I poke? Even a little? We can’t have a conversation if you’re going to get sensitive about something that’s such a big part of your life.”
“There you go accusing me of having no life on a technicality.”
“What I’m doing is getting a pretty good idea of how sensitive you are about those parties,” Devin corrected. “But I’m not interested in taking anything from you that you’re not willing to give—aside from your liberty to go about as you please this ev
ening, which you weren’t likely to do much with anyway.”
“That is a poke.”
The fucker put his hands up again. “I suppose I can’t deny that one.”
“Please! Hands on the fucking wheel!”
“You know, I’m glad we took this trip together,” Devin said. “I’m getting a vivid picture of what it will be like to be married to you. I can’t say I’m against the challenge of it.”
That seemed to be the end of the conversation, which was just fine by me at that point. I almost wanted to cry with frustration, but I reminded myself that was just a consequence of my fright and exhaustion catching up with me, something I didn’t want to show Devin, and it would pass.
I stared out the window at fields I would never have seen on my way out there, had probably never passed by before. It was strange, thinking about my parents on the other side of the world right now while I had never even seen a bunch of cow hotels a few hours’ journey from my usual location. Somehow I’d never thought about how strange it was that they never invited me to come along with them on their trips. They were primarily business, of course, but back in the day I’d met a couple other kids who had parents in academia, and they assumed I went along on the conference trips sometimes. It turned out some of the bigger events even arranged activities for partners and children to take part in while their family member was at talks.
I’d never been terribly interested in holidays and travel. I liked my familiar scenery and to be able to organise my time exactly how I liked. That was what I always said, but that was what my mother and father always said, too. Julia’s always happy at home. She’s not a social child. So… had my preference come from me, or was it something they’d cleverly inflicted upon me to keep me from being too curious about the other half of their lives?