“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.”