“Hi, Kim!” She kept her voice bright. “I’m Anita, from the studio?”
“What do you want?” Kim’s loam-colored eyes were rimmed with red, and she had a trickle of spittle in one corner of her mouth. One of the straps of her sundress hung off one shoulder.
What had they been up to?
She pushed it from her mind.
“I’m such an idiot.” Anita moved closer to the door. “I completely ran out of hairspray. I saw you last night at the showcase, and I thought maybe you had some?”
“No.” Kim tried to close the door. Anita put out a hand to stop it closing completely and smiled wider.
“Please, Kim.” Her smile was probably too brittle, but she could do this. She had to do this. “Let me in.”
Kim’s eyes narrowed, and she tried again to shut the door, but Anita was prepared. She thrust the toe of her sneaker into the jamb and pushed back against the door with both of her hands. It popped open.
Kim fell backward into the room and stumbled but tried to regain her footing.
No. The bitch had kidnapped the man she loved, and she was not going to let this go any further.
Anita sprang forward and planted a firm uppercut into the other woman’s chin. Kim’s head popped backward, blood flying from her nose and lip. She gasped, her hands going to her face and tears falling from her eyes.
“Youbitch!” Kim screamed. She flailed a wild fist toward Anita, but Anita dodged it easily.
She planted her feet in a solid fighting stance, grateful for the give of a dance skirt. When Kim rushed her again, she stepped to the side and planted an elbow in her sternum and a side kick in her stomach. A satisfying whump and thwack as muscle hit flesh.
Kim collapsed to the ground, gasping, sobbing. Anita whipped off the belt looped around her waist and quickly tied the woman’s wrists together.
“No!” Kim sobbed, but her voice was more distraught than angry. It dulled to a whisper. “You don’t deserve him.”
Anita sniffed, and the adrenaline rush faded from her muscles. “I know.”
“Holy shit!” Anita heard a tight gasp from the bed.
Patrick. Patrick was alive.
She stood up and went immediately to his handcuffs, blinking the tears out of her eyes. He was strapped to the bed, shirtless and bruised, tired, dehydrated, and his breathing was rough and fragile. But he was alive. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and suck all the pain from his body and absorb it into her own. Not that anything would be possible while he was still handcuffed.
“Where’s the key?” Anita wheeled on his kidnapper, fists clenched at her sides.
Kim sniffed, then gestured with her bound hands toward her suitcase.
Anita dug through the clutter until she found the handcuff key in a pile of ominous-looking black rubber tubing. She unlocked the cuffs and helped him gently pull his arms back toward his center. She rubbed at his stiff, swollen shoulders. He was okay. Patrick was okay.
And she loved him.
His eyes met hers. His gaze stopped the breath in her throat, so bare and desperate it was. She had never seen Patrick so vulnerable.
She couldn’t say it. This wasn’t the time. He didn’t need her adding to his drama.
“I—I need to call the police.”
He nodded and sat up tentatively, casting a quick glance at Kim, who was still sobbing in a ball on the floor.
“I don’t suppose there’s any ice for her face?” he asked.
Anita went to the ice bucket in the bathroom, wrapped a few half-melted cubes in a washcloth, and handed the bundle to Kim. The woman inspected it like it was napalm.
Whatever, she had things to do and not enough time. She called the police and hotel security.
