Bad Boy’s Bridesmaid(126)
He didn’t smile. “Negotiating mine, if you please.”
I never thought I’d be in a position of power over Nolan. “You don’t like the recording I have of you threatening Maddox.”
“It’s not admissible in court. We live in a two-party consent recording state.”
“Says the man who kidnapped me and tied me up.” Adrenaline helped to push the drugs out of my system. “I don’t care about the court. The media though…”
“This sound clip won’t help my election campaign.”
“I thought so,” I said. “You have an image problem, Mayor Rhys.”
“Not yet.”
Liar. “Your image is dishonest. You act like you’re perfect. The best name, the most money, the greatest education, the spotless record. You’re a mayor of a wholesome, small American town, and you think you deserve something bigger.” I stared at him, at his playboy hair and dazzling blue eyes. “Only I know the real you.”
“No. You bring out something in me, Josie.” He stared at my chest. “I don’t know if it’s something natural or just what you do to me.”
“Don’t blame me for your perversions.”
He tensed, almost angry. “I offered you everything.”
“And I wanted nothing from you.”
“Are you so sure?”
“You can’t give me what I want.” I didn’t trust him as he started to pace. “I hoped you’d go to jail.”
“I told you. I didn’t burn down your shop.”
“I know.”
“But I can get it back for you…”
I kicked my ankles. The ropes were looser around my feet, but I couldn’t get free. Nolan straightened his tie and tried to hide the frustration in his voice. He was willing to bargain even though he hated the offer.
“You have a sound clip in your possession that will damage my career,” he said. “Something that will end my campaign before it begins.”
I wished I had some water. My mouth dried, but that wasn’t as bad as my twisting stomach. It wasn’t a good time for morning sickness.
I faked confidence. “I thought we had an agreement. You stay away from Maddox, and I wouldn’t reveal to every media outlet in the state that you threatened to kill him.”
“Right.” Nolan sneered. “Because you love him.”
“More than anything.”
“I could have given you more than him.” He snickered. “You think my little threat is bad? Do you even know the type of man Maddox is? If you knew the things he’s done, you’d regret denying me.”
“But he’s never kidnapped me,” I said. “Never threatened anyone I love. Never hurt me when I refused him. Never presumed to know what was best for me.”
“I’m in love with you, Josie.”
“Then untie me. Let me go.”
Nolan swore. The hair on my neck rose. I didn’t like this side of him. He was bad enough in public, forcing me into meetings and conversations, but at least there we had a reputation to maintain.
Here? Isolated? Alone? The drugs he used to knock me out were potent, and my head still ached. I had to get away from him before he did something worse than kidnap me.
Before his love turned into lust.
“I want the recording you made of me. Delete it.” Nolan ran a thick tongue over his lip. “And maybe I can offer you something that will put all this unpleasantness behind us.”
“What deal?”
“I’ll help you rebuild your shop.”
“Will you bring a hammer and nails?”
He unfolded a paper from his pocket and held it up so I can see. “This is the original property deed and survey to your land. Bob Ragen was right. The land was subdivided improperly, and the county never recorded it. Technically…” He smiled. “You own both lots. Bob has no case against you.”
I leaned away in the chair. Nolan only stepped closer. “You kidnapped me to show me a clerical error from fifty years ago?”
“I thought you’d be happier.”
“I’d clap, but I can’t move my hands.”
Nolan liked that. “You’ll need money to rebuild. It’s yours.”
“Are you bribing me, or am I blackmailing you?”
“Call it a loan, no interest for the first ten years,” he said. “I’ll become the primary investor in your property and refuse my share of the profits. You get your shop back, your customers, your livelihood. Perhaps that would give you reason to forgive past indiscretions.”
“Nothing will forgive what you’ve done.”
“That’s your part of this arrangement, Josie.” Nolan brushed my cheek. His touch chilled me, rotten and vile. “I need you to control Maddox. Can you do that?”
No. “That’ll be hard to do. You kidnapped me.”
“He doesn’t have to know that.”
“You want me to pretend you didn’t force me from my home in the middle of the night, drugged up and half-naked?”
His hand drifted lower, teasing the hem line of my shirt. He tugged it up, up, up, revealing a sliver of dark skin just over my navel. I hoped he didn’t see me tremble.
“I could have done worse.”
“No doubt.”
“You would have liked it.”
“You’re disgusting.”
His slap was hard, fierce against my cheek. “We still have an opportunity to try, Josie. Don’t tempt me?”
“Pity I don’t have my phone here to record that.”
His second slap struck harsher than the first. The chair teetered, and I fell on my side.
My stomach heaved. Nothing came up but only because I had nothing left in me. I hadn’t eaten. My head throbbed. I was naked, cold, and Nolan’s compromise was looking less and less like something that would benefit me.
Nolan hauled me up from the floor, slicing through the ropes binding me to the chair with a knife I didn’t know he concealed in his pocket. He kicked the chair away and held me up for his inspection. I danced on my tippy-toes while he leered at me.
Whatever defiance I showed before, whatever challenge I issued only pissed him off. I had to rein it back, take some sort of control.
If not for me then for the baby I carried.
“Okay,” I said. “You give me a loan to rebuild my shop, and I won’t release the recording of you. I’ll delete it. No one has to know it happened.”
“Maddox will know.”
I swallowed. My toes barely scraped the ground, and the ropes tugged too hard. “In case you haven’t noticed, you are the reason he left me. I haven’t seen or heard from him in two weeks.”
Nolan’s smile widened, an opportunistic slide of his jaw. “I noticed, Josie.”
“So you don’t have to worry about him.”
“Are you worried about him?”
No need to lie. “Yes.”
“Are you worried about you?”
No hesitation. “Yes.”
“Why?” Nolan gentled, and a strange and unsettling tone shadowed him with mania. “Just once, Josie. Let me prove how much I love you.”
I squirmed. He liked that. “We made our agreement. I trust you. Isn’t that enough?”
“No.”
The ropes bound my arms and legs, but he only needed one hand to hold me still. His other tickled low, cupping my behind and forcing me close to his waist.
Something hard struck my thigh.
This time, I wasn’t so sure he’d give me a chance to argue.
I kept my voice soft, as non-confrontational as I could manage. “Nolan, I’m pregnant.”
His grip released. I dropped to my feet again. He stepped away.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Josie.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You let that brute—”
“I’ll take the deal. I’ll get my shop. You can do your campaign. I agree, okay?”
He grunted, forcing me against one of the barn’s load bearing pillars. The wood scraped my hand. He forced a new rope over my waist that strapped me to the beam. I wiggled as his phone buzzed. It distracted him before he tied the knot as tightly as the others.
He glanced at his cellphone’s screen before flashing it at me. It wasn’t a call or message. Just a blip from an app I didn’t recognize.
“This place looks like an abandoned old barn, but the security on it…” He pocketed the phone. “Top notch.”
“Nolan?”
He walked away to inspect the equipment on an old work bench. “I know you think little of me. It confuses me. I’ve never had to prove myself or earn anyone’s respect. You? You’re a challenge.”
It didn’t sound like such a compliment now.
Nolan continued, talking mostly to himself. “My grandfather worked this land and made his own fortune. My father was the best damn lawyer in the state and raised his family here. I took that money and name and reputation and thought it would impress you. What else can I do to make you look at me the way you look at him?”
My mouth dried. “It’s just…how I feel. You can’t control that.”
“You don’t want this deal any more than I do,” he said. “Sure, it’s good publicity. Local hero offers help to restore community landmark. I’d work it into my campaign. But here’s the problem.” He picked up a heavy tool from the bench and tested its weight against his hand. “I know you. I know the kind of person you are.”