by Nika Rhone
“What…?” The question was reflexive; her brain unable to grab hold of what was happening enough to make sense of it.
“Bitch!” The harsh curse was accompanied by hands grabbing her shoulders and slamming her into the wall a second time. This time her head connected solidly enough to bring her vision down to a single pinpoint of light for a few seconds. A pained whimper escaped her lips.
“You stupid, teasing bitch!” Hands pounded the wall beside her head.
Thea cringed, waiting for another blow as her spinning head scrambled to level itself and start functioning again. What had happened? Why was someone shouting at her, hitting her?
Stalker.
The word jumped up through the rest of her jumbled thoughts with stunning clarity amid the chaos. Somehow, her stalker had gotten in and had found her. Had he jumped Oliver to get to her? Was he hurt? Dead?
Even as she thought it, her brain was slowly starting to shuffle the rest of the pieces back into order and she knew. Even before her vision cleared and she found herself staring into the hot, angry, pale glacial-blue eyes of her attacker, she knew.
“Oliver.” She blinked tears of pain back, trying to focus on him despite the fact that her head was throbbing as though it were going to explode. “Stop. Please. You’re hurting me.”
“Hurting you? Hurting you?” She cringed again as he shouted the words, sending the throbbing pain up a notch to near excruciating.
“What the hell do you think you’ve been doing to me?”
“I’ve never done anything to hurt you.” Calm. Reasonable. And, judging by the explosion that followed, totally the wrong thing to say.
“Oh no? What do you call stringing me along all these months, huh? Coming to see me every chance you got, bringing me little presents, all smiles and flirty niceness, like you were a sweet girl. A nice girl. A girl who knew her place.” The last three words were accompanied by more pounding on the wall, the last one close enough that his fist grazed the side of her head.
She tried to turn away, but he grabbed her jaw and forced her to focus on him.
“But it was all an act, wasn’t it?” His breath was hot on her face. “You aren’t any of those things.”
“Oliver, I’m sorry if you misunderstood.” It was difficult to talk with the bruising grip he had on her jaw, but she had to try, had to reason with him before things got worse. Her mind shied away from the hints the letters had given as to just how much worse.
“I was helping Amelia with the wedding plans. That’s why I came to see you so mu—” She gasped as his grip tightened, bringing tears of pain to her eyes.
“You came to see me.” His pale blue eyes flashed with savage intensity behind the round lenses of his glasses. “The rest was just an excuse, so Mrs. Westlake wouldn’t guess.”
“Oliver—”
“No!” He shoved her head back against the wall. Only being an inch away this time meant the impact wasn’t as great; it was little more than a bump, really, but the previous two blasts had left her head tender enough that she still felt as though someone had taken a baseball bat to her skull. “You came to see me.”
She realized fuzzily that it wasn’t just anger in his eyes. There was a whole lot of crazy in there as well. And you just didn’t reason with a crazy person. You couldn’t. The best she could do was humor him, get him to stop hurting her, and stall until her security detail got there.
Come on, Francine, where are you?
“Okay,” she whispered. “You’re right. I-I came to see you.” She stared at his ear as she said it, knowing she was a crappy liar, but hoping that terror might lend a little credulity to her performance. She saw a smile curve his lips and breathed a small sigh of relief.
“I knew it. I knew it.” His hand loosened on her jaw and skimmed up her cheek in a caress. It was difficult, but she managed not to shudder. “We were meant to be together.”
Seconds passed, and she sensed the anger building in him again, but she honestly had no idea why or what she could do to diffuse it.
“We were meant to be together,” he said again, but this time there was no tenderness in the tone. It was hard and mean, and scared the hell out of her. She jumped when he shouted in her face. “Say it!”
“We were meant to be t-together.” Her mouth was so dry, the words were barely audible, and she had to stuff down the sob that wanted to follow. God, how had this happened? How had she misjudged someone so completely?
She’d actually liked Oliver. They’d been coconspirators. She brought him cookies and he passed her wedding information. They hadn’t been friends but had been friendly. Where in all that interaction had she missed the basic fact that he had a few screws loose?
“You’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” she said dutifully, hoping to avoid another painful prompt.
“That’s right. You’re mine. You’re mine.” He murmured the words over and over as he stroked her cheek. It wasn’t so much a gesture of affection as one of possession. She endured it, fighting to gather her thoughts, fighting to conquer the panic and remember what she needed to do to get away since it seemed help wasn’t coming anytime soon. She’d been taught this. Why couldn’t she remember what she should do? Damn her fuzzy head! Think!
“Oliver,” she said, picking her words with care, “we should get back to the party. We’re going to be missed. It won’t look right if we’re gone too long.” If she could remind him that there were people who might be looking for them, maybe some semblance of rational thought would surface. Oliver had always been about making sure things looked right.
“Who’s going to miss us, Thea?” The caress turned harsh. “Your date? Is that who’s going to miss you?”
Crap. Crap! She’d forgotten about the crazy.
“He’s not my date,” she said, but Oliver grabbed a handful of her hair, gripping it painfully as he brought his face close to hers. It hurt, but at least he hadn’t beaten her head against the wall again.
Yet.
“I was so thrilled when you came to see me the other day about the seating arrangements, telling me you wanted to make sure I was going to be sitting by your side.” His voice was gentle again.
“I never said…” Swallowing, Thea bit off the rest of her protest. Oliver had put his own warped interpretation on her vague request. Pointing out he’d been wrong wouldn’t help her now.
He continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “I was so certain you’d decided to end the little game we were playing, keeping our love a secret. I thought you were finally ready to acknowledge what was between us openly. And what better place than at the party, where all your friends and family would be? It would have been almost like it was our engagement party. That’s how I started thinking of it. As our party.”
“Oliver…”
“Imagine my surprise when you showed up with him at your side.” Disgust dripped from the words. “That’s when I knew. You aren’t really a nice girl at all, are you, Thea? You’re a tease. Just a slutty little tease.”
She couldn’t hold back the yip of pain that the tightening grip on her hair elicited. “Doyle’s my bodyguard. Just my bodyguard.” She struggled to keep her voice calm. “My father worries about me, and he insisted—”
“Bullshit!” Oliver spun away, his hand tearing free of her hair, taking more than a few strands with it.
The pain was worth the freedom it brought, though, and Thea drew a deep breath, her mind finally starting to clear enough for her to remember all the things Doyle and Red had taught her about getting away from an attacker. The hallway was narrow, which limited her options and her avenues of escape. Since she had no idea what lay in the direction they had been heading, her only safe choice was to head back the way they had come. Back to the ballroom.
Back to Doyle.
She just needed to pick her moment.
“He’s not just your bodyguard, Thea.” Oliver sneered her name in disdain. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
No, I
think you’re batshit crazy. “He’s head of my father’s security.”
“You’ve fucked him, haven’t you?”
The question shocked her, which was kind of ridiculous, considering the situation she currently found herself in. Unfortunately, her surprise must have registered as guilt because Oliver’s expression darkened to the violent rage it had held when he’d first slammed her into the wall.
“Unfaithful bitch!”
She saw the hand coming too late. Although she tried to turn, his open palm still struck her face with enough force to rock her off her feet, the sound of flesh hitting flesh obscenely loud in the narrow space. Pain exploded again through her head. She fell to her knees, her hands just keeping her face from slamming to the carpet.
Gagging on the bile welling up in her throat, she gasped for breath through the hair he’d torn from its fancy arrangement that now hung down in her face. The idea of puking on him had some appeal, but then the nausea receded, and she was left with only the pain.
“You’ll learn.”
“Learn what?” The words sounded thick and strange.
“Your lessons. Get up.” A hand grasped her arm and yanked her to her feet.
Thea tolerated his touch because she knew she needed to be off the floor before she could make a move. But even as she found her balance and turned toward him with the intent of going for his eyes with her recently manicured nails, she was brought up short by what he held.
A very small, very deadly looking gun.
He chuckled at her shocked expression. “Don’t worry. I know how to use it.”
She wasn’t sure if that was meant to reassure her or threaten her. It didn’t matter. Either way, she was seriously screwed.
Chapter Thirty
She was going to die.
The very real possibility hit home about the same time as the door they’d passed through at the end of the hallway clicked shut behind them, locking them out of the building. There was no escaping back to the ballroom now. No hope of running to the safety of Doyle and Francine. No hope of waking up and finding that all of this had been some horrible, horrible dream. She was stuck in the dark alone with a crazy man with a gun.
Things probably wouldn’t end well.
No! She stomped on the defeatist thoughts that were threatening to choke her into submission. There might not be anybody around right this second, but if Oliver planned to take her away someplace, he’d have to get his car and that meant dealing with the valets.
And security.
Silently, she gave thanks for the pompous Davenports and their insistence on inviting the vice president and his gaggle of Secret Service agents. According to Doyle, their mere presence had upped the game for all the other security details in attendance. No one would admit to liking the Federal agents, but everyone wanted to look good in front of them.
For the first time since Oliver had revealed himself to be her stalker, Thea felt the universe come into balance. Things weren’t going to be easy, not when Oliver had a gun shoved in her ribs, but neither were they hopeless. She just needed to be ready to take advantage of any opportunity that presented itself.
The door they’d come out of was on the opposite end of the building from the ballroom, just about as far from the parking lot as you could get. There was a narrow, concrete walkway that curved around back, and she stumbled more than once as Oliver started pushing her along it. Her delicate stiletto heels might have been a dream to glide over a polished dance floor in, but on an uneven surface in the dark, they were an accident waiting to happen.
Oliver must have thought the same because he pulled her to a jolting halt after her next stumble. “Kick them off.”
Thea found herself strongly adverse to even that small act of disrobing for him. “The dress is too long to walk in without them,” she said, realizing it was true. “I’ll trip.”
“How could you wear that?” Oliver pushed her into motion again. Evidently, her argument made sense to him. Which was good, because the idea starting to form in her head would need the shoes to succeed.
“Wear what?”
“That slutty dress.” It sounded like he was gritting his teeth. “It’s just like you, isn’t it? It looks all sweet and nice, but the truth is right there, just waiting to be revealed.”
His fingers flexed around her upper arm, making her wince. The bruises Margo had inflicted there were just fading, the area still tender. She had a feeling the new batch of bruises was going to be much more spectacular than the last. “You’ll learn, though. Oh, yes, you’ll learn.”
Obviously, the high slits in her gown that Doyle had found so intriguing when she’d slid into the Charger were a big red flag for Oliver’s temper, so Thea thought it wise to steer the conversation someplace else. “You said that before. What am I going to learn?”
“Your lessons.”
“What lessons?”
“How to behave yourself. How not to tease a man, lead him on, make him think you want him, and then just ignore him the next time you see him like he’s no better than a piece of trash at the side of the road.”
There was a vehemence to his words, and an underlying anger that frightened her as much as the words themselves.
“I never ignored you, Oliver. I never treated you like that.”
“You did! I sent you things, presents, and you never once thanked me for them. I thanked you every time you brought me something. Every time!”
The cookies, she realized. She’d brought him cookies.
“But you never even acknowledged my gifts. You just took and took, like it was your due, and I wasn’t even worth a simple thank you for the effort.”
“What…” The question remained unspoken as the memory of her conversation with Doyle about the stalker flashed through her mind. There hadn’t just been letters. Recently, there had been presents. Flowers. Chocolates. The gifts of a man courting a woman.
Of Oliver courting her.
“I didn’t get them,” she said, opting for the truth.
“Liar.”
“No, really, they were stopped by security when they were delivered, and I never—” Too late, she realized her mistake.
“Stopped by the man you’re fucking, you mean.”
Deciding it wouldn’t help her cause to say that she hadn’t been sleeping with Doyle back when the gifts had been intercepted, Thea said instead, “I would have thanked you if I’d gotten them, Oliver. Really.” She tried to sound grateful. “The chocolates were my favorite kind. It was sweet of you to go to the trouble to find that out.” And by sweet she meant creepy.
“I overheard you and Amelia talking about it.” The boast made her skin crawl. How many other private conversations had he eavesdropped on?
“What about the flowers?” He sounded eager for more compliments.
“Um…” She hadn’t seen the flowers. Had he forgotten that fact? Maybe he had. “They were very pretty.”
“Pretty.” He sighed. “It’s never enough for you, is it?”
“What?”
“I give and give and give, but you’re just too spoiled to appreciate the value of the act instead of the value of the gift. Everything has to be bigger and shinier and more expensive. But you’ll learn. I’ll teach you to appreciate everything I do for you. Every single thing.”
There was such dark promise in those words that Thea stumbled again, and this time it had nothing to do with her shoes and everything to do with the pictures her mind drew from the words in those god-awful letters.
You’ll scream and cry and beg at first, but in the end, you’ll come to understand. The lessons will be hard won, but they’ll make you a better woman, the perfect woman for me. Only when you’ve been cleansed of your past through the blood of true penance will you be ready to serve me as you were meant to.
Oh, hell no! No way was this sick bastard teaching her any lesson, much less ones that promised screaming and blood. She tensed her shoulders, wondering how much longer it was going to be
before they got to the parking lot. The building was huge, but they must have walked almost all the way around…
They weren’t heading for the parking lot.
Fear chased through her like a ghostly wind at the realization. She’d been so smug in her certainty that he was going to walk right into the arms of the people who would thwart his nasty plans and save her. What she’d forgotten was that as twisted and crazy as he was, one thing Oliver didn’t seem to be was stupid.
He’d managed to elude detection for months, even while living right in their midst. What had made her think he’d just walk out into a parking lot full of people wearing guns and allow himself to be caught?
Stupid, stupid, Thea.
“Where are we going?” She slowed her steps against the insistent pressure of the gun in her back.
“To your new home.”
“But you live in Connecticut.” Or maybe he didn’t. She hadn’t given much thought to where Oliver lived. Truthfully, she’d never given much thought to him at all.
“I rented a place here after I decided you were the one. I thought it would be good for you to stay close to home while you were getting settled into your new role as my wife.”
Coming from a normal man, that might have sounded thoughtful. From Oliver, it proved that he’d been planning this ending right from the very start. Nothing she could have done, nothing Doyle could have done, would have changed anything.
“I’m not going to be your wife, Oliver,” she said, deciding that this was as far as she was going with him. If they made it as far as the car he most likely had hidden somewhere, she’d be lost. If she was going to make a stand, it had to be here and now. And if he shot her…well, she’d prefer that to what he had in mind.
“You will.” He pushed her, but she dug her in heels and pushed back. “Stop fighting me! You’ll be sorry later for defying me like this.”
She let herself stumble again, which removed the gun from her back for the split second she needed to make a move. With every ounce of strength she could muster, she stabbed one four-inch heel down into his instep above his shoe while at the same time thrusting her elbow back into his sternum and slamming her head back into his face, which hurt her already sore head a lot worse than she’d expected. Any of those three attacks on its own might not have been enough to free her, but coming all at the same time, they served up just enough pain and surprise to do the trick.