The door closes behind him with a soft click.
And I'm alone.
In a locked room.
In a stranger's penthouse.
With a man who's been watching me for almost a year.
I slide down the wall again and pull my knees to my chest.
This is real.
This is actually real.
Scary Hot Regular kidnapped me.
And somewhere in the part of my brain that's been reading dark romance novels for years, a tiny voice whispers:
This is exactly like the books.
I tell that voice to shut the hell up.
But it doesn't.
3
Konstantin
She doesn't speak for the first hour of the drive.
Jemma sits in the back seat of the SUV, pressed against the door as far from me as the seatbelt allows. Her hands are folded in her lap, knuckles white. She's staring out the window at the darkness and falling snow.
She's terrified.
Good. She should be.
But she's also still here. Still breathing steadily. Not crying, not screaming, not doing any of the things a truly panicked woman would do. She's thinking. Processing. Trying to understand what's happening.
Smart girl.
"We're about an hour from Severny Harbor," I tell her.
She doesn't respond.
"Jemma."
Nothing.
I reach over and rest my hand on her thigh. She flinches but doesn't pull away. Can't pull away. Nowhere to go.
"You need to listen to me."
"I'm listening." Her voice is flat. Empty.
"When we get there, my family will be waiting. My mother, my cousin Dimitri, his wife Anya, their daughter Natasha. Others." I squeeze her thigh gently. "You're going to smile. You're going to pretend we're dating. You're going to be warm and charming and perfect."
"Or what?"
