Page 30 of Kidnapped Bride

He was quiet for a second, and I could feel his chest rise and fall against my back. His heartbeat was annoyingly steady compared to mine, which was going so fast, I felt lightheaded. I hated how much he got me worked up and not just because I was so mad at him. He made me flustered and aroused and none of this was okay with me.

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Kira." Nikolai sounded calmer than I'd heard him in a week, more like the sweet man who met me in front of that restaurant before life erupted. "I never wanted it to go like this."

"And yet here we are." It was hard to let go of the anger, but I was trying. I knew it served no purpose. I’d get my blood pressure up for no reason. No matter what I did, acting out or playing toward his weakness, I was trapped here. I had to get used to that.

"Here we are," he agreed. "I'm sorry for that. But your father's been bleeding me dry for six months. He's taken my men, my businesses, my territory. I tried to handle it quietly and he kept pushing. Taking you was the only move I had left."

"Taking me?" I said flatly because I wanted him to hear stupid how it sounded. "You didn't take me, Niko. You tricked me. You spent two weeks pretending to be someone I could trust and then you used that trust to trap me."

"I know." Was that a hint of remorse in his tone? Was this a joke? Now he was trying to loosen me up or make me think he wasn’t a monster?

"It's not something that just happened. You literally planned this enough that you studied me and memorized ways to get in my fucking head." Tears welled up in my eyes and I blinked them back. What I wouldn't do for a man who was actually the things Nikolai said he was. Every woman wants a man that incredible whom she meshes with so perfectly, and I was a fool for thinking he was a dream come true.

"You lied to me and pretended you were interested." Now I was quieter too, but not because I was calmer. I just felt the fight leaving me, and what was left was sadness. "Why even ask me about the things I'm interested in if you didn't care?"

"I asked because I wanted to talk about it. Not because it was part of some plan."

"How am I supposed to believe that?"

"Because it's the truth. Everything I told you in those messages was real. I didn't make any of that up, Kira."

Even if it was true and he had shared real moments from his life, and he was interested in the same hobbies that I was, what he'd done was still wrong. "You made up the part where you were a decent person."

"I am a decent person in a very indecent situation." When his thumb started strumming over my knuckles, I grimaced.

"Decent people don't lock women in bedrooms," I snipped.

"No," he said quietly, "they don't. And I wish I'd had another option. But your father doesn't respond to anything less thanforce, and you were the only thing he cared about enough to notice."

"Clearly, he doesn't care that much, or I'd be home by now." My bitterness about my father came out in every word I said, but Niko didn't respond. Something had happened with my father. Something Niko wasn't telling me, and the way he went quiet made my stomach drop.

I'd known for a very long time that my father was obsessed with his work more than normal men. My mother didn't just jet off to Europe for months at a time because she wanted to escape being a mother. When Dugan and I would talk about it, even he would point out how bad he thought it was, probably one of the reasons Dugan never wanted to follow in our father's footsteps.

So it comes as no shock to me that no rescue attempt has been made. Though, if Nikolai is hoping for a ransom, he can stop waiting. Dad would never do that.

"What?" I asked when Niko sighed heavily.

"Nothing."

"Don't do that. Don't bring up my father and then go silent. What happened? Did you talk to him?"

"Yes."

"And?"

His arm shifted and his thumb moved absently across my stomach, just a small back-and-forth motion that I didn't think he was even aware of. It made my skin tingle thinking of how caring a gesture it was, and wondering why he'd offer me a kind gesture at all right now. I was his prisoner, not his lover. That ship had sailed.

"He told me he wouldn't stop," Niko said carefully, "regardless of what I did."

Pressing my eyes closed, I sucked in a breath and blew it out. "You're lying," I told him, though he had no real reason left to lie to me. I was already caged. What more could he do?

"I'm not."

I pulled forward and scooted away from him, dragging the covers with me until there was a solid gap between us. He let me go without resistance. His arm slid off and I heard him settle onto his back.

"My father would never say that," I said to the wall. "He loves me."

"I believe he does. But he loves his empire more, and right now, those two things are in conflict."