“As of yesterday, there’s a little over forty thousand dollars.” He resumes walking, and I hurry after him, feeling like I’ve fallen through a rabbit hole. “As to what you want to do with it, it’s up to you. If you want, I can ask my portfolio manager to invest it for you, or if you feel like playing the stock market yourself, you can do that too. Or just leave it sitting there until you have a better idea of what you want to do with it.”
My Alice-in-Wonderland feeling intensifies. “I can play the stock market?”
“If that’s what you want to do. Or you can leave it to the professionals—Winters, my portfolio manager, is quite good.”
Right. Because everyone knows captives have access to topnotch portfolio managers. My mind races as I try to work through the implications of this. “Lucas, are you…” I glance at him cautiously. “Are you going to set me free?”
He stops and turns to face me, his casual demeanor gone without a trace. “What do you mean by that?” His pale eyes glint dangerously. “Are you saying you want to leave?”
“No, but”—I swallow, my pulse kicking up—“would you let me if I did?” Could Lucas have changed his mind about our relationship? Is it possible he’s grown to care about me enough to give me this choice?
He steps toward me, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun streaming through the trees. “Never,” he says with harsh finality. “You’re not leaving me. You can do whatever you want, run a thousand restaurants, make millions if you feel like it, but you’ll do it by my side. I’m not letting you go, Yulia—not now, not ever.”
I stare up at him, my heart pounding with a contradictory mixture of dismay and elation. “Never? But what if you get tired of me?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You can’t say that for sure—”
“Yes, I can.” He steps even closer, forcing me to back up against a tree. Bracing his palms on the thick trunk behind me, he leans in, his eyes gleaming. “I’ve never wanted another woman the way I want you. You’re like a fire under my skin. I want you every minute of every day. It doesn’t matter how often we fuck; the moment I pull out, I want to be in you again, feeling your wet, silky heat, smelling you… tasting you.” He draws in a deep breath, his muscular chest expanding, and I feel my own breathing quicken as his hard pecs touch my peaked nipples. My palms press against the tree behind me, the rough bark digging into my skin. I’m caged by him, surrounded, the fire that he just talked about burning under my skin as well.
Involuntarily, my tongue comes out to moisten my lips, and I see Lucas’s eyes darken.
“Yulia…” He presses his lower body against mine, and I feel the hard swell in his jeans. “I can’t stop wanting you, no matter what I do,” he says in a low, thick voice. “Every night, when I hold you, I think that maybe tomorrow will be the day when this obsession lessens, when I can go a few hours without thinking about you, without craving you like a fucking drug, but that’s not what happens. I wake up just as addicted, and you know what, baby?”
“What?” I manage to whisper, my mouth dry and my pulse hammering. What Lucas is saying, the way he’s looking at me…
“I kind of like it.” He lowers his head until his mouth hovers less than a centimeter from mine. I can smell the bergamot of Earl Grey on his breath, see the darkness of his pupils and the blue-gray rings of irises surrounding them. “You give me something I didn’t know I wanted, and I’m not about to let it slip away.”
“What…” I inhale, prickles of heat racing up and down my spine. “What do I give you?”
“This.” His lips ghost over mine, the tenderness of the kiss contrasting with the savage hunger I feel in him. “You. Whichever way I want.” His mouth trails over my jaw, warm and soft on my skin, and I close my eyes, a moan escaping my lips as my head involuntarily tips back. I feel hot and dizzy, my body thrumming with a dark, pulsing heat that has nothing to do with the mid-morning sun beaming down on the rainforest canopy above us. I’m drunk on Lucas, high on whatever chemical cocktail my brain cooks up in his presence. He’s not telling me anything I didn’t already know—his sexual obsession with me has been obvious from the beginning—yet the needy part of me searches for a deeper meaning in his erotically charged words, tries to decipher them like a puzzle. Could this be his way of telling me he cares about me? That he loves me, even?
I open my eyes, fighting the drugged sensation so I can find the courage to ask, and then I hear it.
A woman’s peal of laughter, followed by the sound of twigs snapping under someone’s feet.
Lucas must’ve heard it too, because he releases me and spins around, keeping me protectively behind him.
A second later, a small, dark-haired girl sprints out from behind the trees, her tanned face glowing with a smile and her white sports bra soaked with sweat. Two steps behind her is a tall, darkly handsome man. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of gray running shorts, his bronzed, muscular body gleaming with perspiration and his white teeth bared in a grin.
His blue eyes meet mine from behind the shelter of Lucas’s body, and the heat inside me turns to ice.
It’s Julian and Nora Esguerra.
They must’ve been out for a run.
Seeing us, they stop, breathing heavily. Their smiles disappear without a trace.
“Hey there,” Lucas says calmly, seemingly oblivious to the tension crackling in the air. “How’s your run?”
“Hot. Humid. You know, the usual,” Esguerra responds in the same casual manner, but I see the hard set of his jaw as he steps forward to stand next to Nora. He towers over her petite frame, his biceps almost the same width as her slender waist. A ray of sunlight falls across his face, and I notice a faint white scar on his left cheekbone. It runs all the way to the top of his eyebrow, crossing his left eye.
His fake left eye, I remember with a cold shudder. He lost the real one after the plane crash I’d caused.
“Sorry, we didn’t mean to interrupt,” Nora says, her cool tone belying her apology. Her dark eyes travel from me to Lucas, then back to me as she adds, “It’s my fault. We don’t usually run this way, but I went off our usual path today.”
Lucas’s massive shoulders rise in a brief shrug. “It’s your estate. You can go wherever you wish.” His voice is still unruffled, but the muscles in his arms tighten, and when I glance at Esguerra, I see him staring at me, his gaze menacing in its intensity.
The ice inside me spreads all the way down to my toes. I’m not afraid for myself, but I can’t bear the thought of endangering Lucas, who’s standing in front of me like a human shield. He’s ready to fight for me, I can feel it.
To protect me, he’ll go up against Esguerra and die—if not in the fight itself, then afterwards, at the hands of two hundred guards presumably loyal to their boss.
“Lucas,” I say quietly, curling my fingers around his wrist. “Come. We should go.”
He doesn’t move, and neither does Esguerra. The two men appear to be rooted in place, their powerful muscles bunched tight as they glare at each other. Lucas is a couple of centimeters taller and slightly thicker in the chest than Esguerra, but I have a feeling they’d be evenly matched in a fight. Violence is the language they speak; it’s there in the scars on their bodies and the savagery in their eyes.
If the line of trust is crossed, only one of them will leave this forest alive.
Apparently reaching the same conclusion, Nora says softly, “Yes, Julian, we should go.” Parroting my gesture, she wraps her slim fingers around her husband’s broad wrist, her tiny hand appearing childlike next to his. Esguerra tenses further, and for a moment, I’m certain he’ll twist out of her grasp, shaking her off with the ease of an adult pushing away a clinging toddler, but he doesn’t.
“Yes,” he says, making a visible effort to relax. “You’re right. Let’s go. I have some work to do.”
Nora nods and drops her hand, turning away. “Race you!” she yells at Esguerra over her shoulder, and with one last glance in our direction, she sprints away, disappearing into the trees. Her husband follows, and a few moments later, we’re alone again.
Lucas turns to face me. “Are you all right?” he asks quietly.
“Of course.” I force a smile to my lips. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Stepping to the left, I slip around him and hurry toward his house, unwilling to stay in the forest even a moment longer.
I no longer have any doubts about my future here.
The next time Esguerra sees me, blood will be spilled.
45
Lucas
The moment we get home, Yulia excuses herself and disappears into the bathroom to take a shower before starting lunch preparations. I consider joining her there, but decide against it.
As much as I want to comfort her after what happened, there’s something I must do first.
Half an hour later, I walk into Esguerra’s office. He must’ve just showered and changed, because his hair is wet as he stands up to face me, his eyes hard and his jaw stiff with anger.