by Vivian Wood
No, they won’t help me.
Angrily, I get to my feet. “Everything you’re doing only makes me hate you more.”
Misha seems unconcerned by this as he grips me firmly by the upper arm and marches me outside and down to the waiting car. The bodies of the three attackers have been taken out and dragged to one side. Two of them are bound so perhaps they’re unconscious, not dead.
As I get into the front passenger seat I avert my gaze from the bloodstains in the back. Misha gets into the driver’s seat, starts the car and puts his foot down. At the gate my heart starts to pound and I expect another car to race up and for men to get out, aiming guns at us. But nothing happens. Misha slows the car just enough to make a left-hand turn, and then we’re off in a scream of tire rubber.
“Jesus Christ, Misha,” I say, forgetting to call him Mikhail. I fumble for my seatbelt and fasten it with shaking hands. “Are you a goddamn racing car driver?”
He changes up through the gears in rapid progression and answers me without taking his eyes off the road ahead. “Amateur. In my youth.”
I glance at the speedometer. One hundred and thirty kilometers an hour. What’s that, like eighty miles per hour? I grip the bar above the passenger door. “Slow down, can’t you?” He doesn’t reply. I suppose he’s in a hurry to get wherever we’re going. “If you like driving so much why do you never drive in London?”
“Because driving in London is about as much fun as having a root canal.” There’s a dark gleam in his eye as he coaxes even more speed from the car. We’re on deserted roads right now but I hope he keeps this up when we enter a more built-up area. I would love for us to get pulled over by the cops.
I still have the blanket Misha gave me and I’m glad for it, as the soft wool is comforting amid all this upheaval and uncertainty. As we drive I gaze at the landscape of scrubby plains and distant houses. There are mountains beyond, and one in particular stands out against the lightening sky because it has a distinctive flat top. I frown, wondering if I recognize it. We’re driving on the left, as we do in Britain, so we’re not in Europe or Canada, or the United States. Australia? No, we couldn’t have reached Australia without refueling.
We pass a road sign emblazoned with a Dutch-sounding name. “South Africa,” I say involuntarily.
“Clever girl,” Misha replies, ironically, but without heat. He seems to wait for me to question him about our destination, but I turn away and look out the window again, even though I’m burning to know. I’m not going to chat away with my kidnapper as if I’m fine with what he’s doing to me.
Forty-five minutes later the adrenaline coursing through my system has worn off and I’m left feeling weak and shivery. The co-pilot’s clothes smell of an aftershave I don’t like. I just want to go home and for everything to go back to the way it was. I remember Dubrovnik and the happy time we had there, before I knew who Misha really was, and stupid tears fill my eyes. Everything seemed so hopeful under that big blue sky. I was going to pay off my debt to Mr. Ravnikar, I was on-track with my coursework again and I’d met a man who filled me with happiness every time I slipped into his arms and he held me close.
I can’t help the sniffle that escapes me and I swipe at my eyes. It’s terrible to admit to myself, but I miss loving Misha. Now I’ll never be happy again, because who could learn to trust a man enough to love him after this?
Misha takes his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at me. “I’m sorry about all this,” he says in a rough voice. “I know it’s hard. I wish…”
But he doesn’t finish the sentiment. He can be as sorry as he likes but that doesn’t change anything he’s done or the lies he’s told. He reaches for my hand but I pull mine away. “Don’t touch me.”
Fifteen minutes later I’m not surprised to see us pull into another private airport. There’s a jet refueling on the tarmac and fear clenches in my belly. Where’s Misha taking me now?
He’s quick to get out of the car and come round to my door. As I get out my eyes flicker to the shoulder holster that I know is beneath his jacket. Would he draw the gun on me if I try to get away?
For a moment he seems puzzled by the direction of my gaze, and then he seems to read my mind. “Ciara. The gun is to protect you. I don’t need to threaten you. You’re half my size and I’m much, much stronger than you are.”
To demonstrate, he reaches for me, one of his shoulders dipping, and I see that he intends to haul me over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. I jump back quickly against the car, both hands raised, and but he keeps coming. For a moment he’s nearly pressed against me and I feel the warmth of his body radiating against mine. Even now I feel the impulse to get lost in his touch. Misha seems to know this, and his arms slip around my waist, big hands splayed, and a pulse of heat goes through me.
“Remember what this felt like?” he asks, his lips murmuring against mine. “The way we fit so beautifully together?”
I could never forget that. His arms tighten around me and my hips presses against his, and I feel his cock thickening against my thigh. I’m trapped in his embrace, like a bird who has learned to love her cage.
I lift my chin with bravado I don’t feel. “Does it get you off, knowing I’m completely in your power?”
“I find I don’t dislike it. I’m the hero, saving the damsel in distress. Taking her to my castle far, far away.”
“You don’t seem like the hero just now. You’re more like the dragon.”
“Maybe I’m both,” he murmurs with a smile, and he presses his mouth against mine in a slow, hungry kiss. I feel him all the way down to my toes, and in my nipples which are pressed against his chest. One of his hands moves lower, into the cleft of my behind, and then searches for my sex through the co-pilot’s trousers. When he touches me there my whole body lights up, and his tongue caresses mine with tender heat.
I wrench my mouth away from his. “Let go of me. You’ve got me captive, there’s no need to humiliate me as well.”
I press my good hand against his chest. I can feel how much he doesn’t want to step back but finally he does, his face closed. He takes hold of my upper arm again as if worried I might do a runner. I would, too, bare feet and all.
The engines are roaring as we board the plane. Inside, the jet is as plush as Misha’s own, with leather seats, a large television screen at the back and sofas lining the walls. “Whose plane is this?”
He directs me to a pair of seats and sits down beside me for takeoff. “I’ve hired it.”
My ears perk up at this. A hired plane. A female flight attendant in a pencil skirt, white blouse and high heels is fastening the cabin door, and then she comes towards us with a tray of drinks and a plastic smile. She doesn’t look like ex-armed forces. This is my chance.
As she leans down to offer us a selection of champagne and soft drinks I lean forward and gabble at her, “Please, I’m a British citizen and this man has kidnapped me.”
Beside me, Misha reaches out, unconcerned, and plucks two bottles of sparkling water off the tray. The woman doesn’t even bat an eyelid as she waits for me to choose something, too.
What the hell? Can she not hear me? Maybe she doesn’t speak English. I try again to make her understand, hoping that help or danger or kidnap or embassy might mean something to her. I clutch her arm but she seems more concerned about the drinks as they spill rather than the agitated young woman crying out for help.
I round on Misha angrily and see that his eyes are glimmering with amusement. “Who did you hire this jet from?”
He considers this. “Let’s just say I didn’t find it in the Yellow Pages.”
I watch the woman walk away, my eyes boring angrily into her back. A fellow woman, ignoring my pleas for help. It feels worse than the same betrayal by a man would. Misha tries to pass me one of the bottles of water but I slap his hand away. This jet must belong to one of the dodgy people he knows through Ravnikar Enterprises. Asshole.
We take off, and once we’ve leveled off t
he flight attendant comes back and says to us, in accented English, that the bedroom at the back of the plane is ready if we’d like to rest or wash up.
I glare up at her. So she did understand what I was saying to her about being kidnapped, and she ignored me.
Once she leaves us alone again, Misha says, “Go and rest. You’re going to need it.”
That sounds ominous. I don’t want to accept anything from anyone on this plane, but a room to myself away from Misha and the flight attendant sounds appealing. After considering it for a moment, I stand up. So does Misha.
“You’re not coming with me,” I protest.
“No. I’m going to sleep here,” he replies, going over to the sofa. Out of the corner of my eye I see him rub his hands over his face, as if he’s weary with something more than fatigue.
I wish I knew what to make of him and the things he’s told me. If he’s been working with Damir all this time to punish me for my father’s crimes, shouldn’t he be gloating now? Shouldn’t Damir be here, too, telling me how they played me for a fool and made me give up everything to Misha? The other explanation, that Misha has been going behind his brother’s back and trying to help me, that he truly does love me, seems wildly unlikely. Brothers don’t just betray each other for unknown women, especially not daughters of men who’ve screwed them over.
I stand in the doorway to the bedroom, hesitating. “Mish—Mikhail. I don’t understand why you’re still lying to me. You and Damir have won. Can’t you just admit that you tricked me into…” Falling for you. “Believing you were trustworthy?”
“I told you,” he says, not looking at me as he piles all the cushions at one end of the sofa. “I was never on Damir’s side. I’ve always been on yours.”
I don’t believe him, but I play along just so I can poke holes in his ridiculous story. “So you’re going to all this effort because Damir wants to kidnap me, and yet you’re doing the same yourself?”
He rounds on me, anger sparking in his eyes. “I think we need to settle this once and for all. I am not my brother. I will do whatever needs to be done, but for your sake, not mine. Selfishness drives him. Cruelty drives him.” Misha jabs a finger at his chest. “It does not drive me.”
He’s exhausted, wound up and dangerously close to losing his temper, but conviction burns brightly in his eyes. As a lawyer you have to evaluate the believability of your client. If you put them on the witness stand to tell their side of the story, will they come across as truthful? I study the man before me, the way he holds my gaze, sincere passion in the way he speaks. If Misha had been accused of a crime and hired me to represent him, I’d put him on the witness stand.
Some people, though, can lie through their teeth while appearing to be as innocent as the Madonna.
“Then what does drive you?”
He turns back to the cushions and mutters, “The memory of the person someone once thought I was.”
Someone once thought he was a good person? Who? I know that he and Damir were born in Slovenia. That they run Ravnikar Enterprises together. That he raced cars as a young man. And now, that someone once thought he was a good man.
I turn away and go through the door into the bedroom at the back of the jet, closing it behind me. Misha is asking me to trust him, but with all that’s happened to me lately I don’t know if I can. My trust has taken one hell of a beating.
The interior of the bedroom is large, warm and comfortable, more like a hotel room at the Four Seasons than anything that should be airborne. There’s a double bed with a cream comforter and half a dozen fat pillows. Someone’s laid out two pairs of pajamas, a man and a woman’s set, as if they expected Misha and I to go to bed together, hold each other, sleep wrapped around each other in this safe little nest in the sky.
As I step into the bathroom complete with shower and turn the taps on, I imagine what Misha and I would be doing now if we were on good terms. In private for the first time in many hours, he’d take me in his arms and kiss me. Maybe we’d even share a tired laugh at the pilots’ uniforms we’re both wearing, before stripping them off each other and making love, ferociously, because we came so close to death just a short time ago. I’d want him to pin me down so I was helpless beneath him, and revel in the weight of him, the strength of him, as he pounded me hard into the mattress.
I make an involuntary moan in the back of my throat, and step into the shower to distract myself. The water is hot with surprisingly good pressure and, one-handed, I scrub the grit and exhaustion of the last day from my skin and hair.
When I come back into the bedroom I see a tray with a croissant, fruit, orange juice, and a pot of both tea and coffee. I’m hungry, and I need to keep my wits about me. I opt for a cup of milky tea as I munch my way gratefully through the pastry and pieces of strawberry and melon.
Finally, exhausted in body, head and heart I get into the comfortable bed and close my eyes, but my mind won’t slow down. Someone, somewhere in the universe, knows why all this is happening. Someone knows the truth about what sort of man Misha is. When I was little I thought of truth as some kind of omnipotent god, that if only you revered it enough you would eventually discover all the secrets you wanted. Not just about big mysterious things, like who killed JonBenét Ramsey and the fate of flight MH370, but personal things, too, like whether your friend in high school was lying when she said she didn’t kiss your boyfriend. Studying law means becoming obsessed with the truth. Is that person lying? Why might they be lying? Can we even comprehend reality, objectively and absolutely?
I’ve never wanted to know the truth about something more in my life. Misha the savior, or Misha the manipulator?
White knight, or bad dragon?
I examine the two possibilities in turn, poking and prodding them with my mind. I’ve always believed that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one, but both are hopelessly complicated and there’s too much I don’t know. It’s tempting to make an emotional decision, to go with my gut, but I make a face. Gut instincts are for jurors, not lawyers. I need something solid to go on.
My last thought before I fall asleep is to wonder where in the world I’ll be when I open my eyes again.
I wake sometime later with the sensation that time has passed. When I check the row of clocks on the wall I see that five hours have gone by. Each clock has a label: London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Sydney. It’s Tuesday afternoon in London. I’d be coming home from class if I was at home, maybe rushing so that I could get ready to meet Misha. Perhaps on the way I would have stopped by Ravnikar Enterprises to drop off—
I give a short, humorless laugh and swing my legs out of bed, because I’ve just realized that I won’t have to worry about paying my father’s debt off anymore. Not with money, anyway. Damir and Misha probably have something else in mind for me, if Theory B is correct, and Misha is a master manipulator.
Someone—presumably that horrible flight attendant—has laid out a change of clothes for me. When I inspect them I see that they’re my size. Maybe there’s a special kidnapping package that can be purchased with the hire of this jet, I think sourly, that comes with women’s clothing and no questions asked.
I dress in the jeans, baby doll tee and ballet flats, splash cold water over my face, and then head cautiously out into the main cabin.
The couch looks as if it’s been slept on. Misha is awake, working at his laptop, still in the pilot’s uniform. He looks up as I approach, a guarded expression in his eyes. “Good morning.”
“Afternoon,” I correct as I sit down, stubbornly sticking to London time. The flight attendant appears and asks if I would like coffee, and says that she’ll be serving lunch shortly. I tell her that yes, I would like coffee, and I stare balefully at her back as she retreats.
A moment later she returns with a silver pot and a tray with two cups, smiling her plastic smile.
“You expect me to believe you’re a good person,” I say to Misha as she pours coffee for us, “and yet you consort wit
h people who turn a blind eye to women being abducted.”
If the attendant heard me she doesn’t give any indication, and a moment later she leaves us to it. I add cream to my coffee and deliberately place the jug out of Misha’s reach. He takes cream. I remember from Dubrovnik.
Misha ignores what I said and leans across the table for the jug. He adds a dash of cream to his coffee and stirs it. “Did you sleep well?”
I level a dry look at him over the top of my coffee cup. I’m not going to exchange pleasantries with him. I’m here for information. “Where are we going?”
“Sharjah. In the United Arab Emirates.”
My eyebrows lift in surprise. I didn’t actually expect him to answer me. “Why?”
“Reasons,” he says crisply. “May I use the bathroom in the suite? I would like to shower.”
“You can do whatever you like, apparently.”
He has another mouthful of coffee and then gets up from the table without a word. Twenty minutes later he’s back, dressed in a white shirt and gray dress pants, his black curls damp from the shower. The casual way his collar is open and his shirtsleeves are rolled back reminds me of how he looked in Dubrovnik, and my heart turns over with longing at the memory.
The flight attendant serves lunch, baked chicken wrapped in prosciutto, and asparagus with hollandaise sauce. There’s also a bottle of Viognier in an ice bucket, draped with a linen napkin and, after considering it for a moment, I accept a glass. I could use a little Dutch courage for the coming conversation. Bright sunlight is slanting through the cabin windows. Misha looks handsome and we’re flying somewhere exotic and international. When I take a sip I find the wine is very good. This would be idyllic under different circumstances.
I take another sip. “So, tell me about yourself, Mikhail Ravnikar. I mean, technically this is our first date.”