Page 34 of Kidnapped Bride

She sat up and the sheet fell to her waist, and she stared at me like I'd just spoken a language she didn't recognize. "Are you insane?" she asked, shaking her head.

"Probably." I tucked my arm behind my head and looked up at her. "But it's what needs to happen."

"It's not happening, Niko. You can't force someone to marry you. That's not how any of this works."

"Your father won't negotiate for you, so I need a different approach. A marriage makes this public. Every one of his enemies will?—"

"What the hell!" she hissed, glaring at me. "Now you want to use me to force his enemies to attack him?" The pain in her tone seemed exaggerated, but after what she'd been through, I couldn’t blame her.

"Among other things."

"What other things?" She shoved off the bed and grabbed my T-shirt off the floor, pulling it over her head roughly. Her hands shook with anger as she yanked the boxers up over her hips.

"Kira—"

"You don't own me," she hissed through her teeth. Then she turned and walked into the bathroom and slammed the door. The lock clicked and then I heard her crying.

And I lay in bed staring at the ceiling feeling like a heel. There was never any chance she would take that well and her reaction was understandable. The problem was, now I had to force her to go through with it because I'd botched the setup so badly. I thought we'd made a connection during sex, but it was obviousto me that I had been the only one to feel it. It was just sex to her, not a connection.

But regardless, it was my only play.

Her father had to back off or I was going to lose everything. If I had to use her to do it, I would, though the more I did, the worse it made me feel.

10

KIRA

The rain hadn't stopped in two days. I sat on the window seat with my knees pulled up and watched it streak down the glass in uneven lines, merging and splitting apart like it couldn't decide where it wanted to go. I related to that more than I wanted to admit to myself, or anyone else, for that matter.

I felt fractured, like only a part of myself. I knew my father knew exactly where I was because Nikolai had told him. Yet, here I was, with no one coming to my rescue or fighting to have me back. It hurt and I didn't know how to express that, or whom to tell. Nikolai obviously wasn't the right person. After all, he'd been the one to take me and lock me up, which only proved he was worse than my father.

I sighed, turning away from the window, and sank onto the foot of the bed where a whole stack of clothes sat piled so high, I could barely see over it. There were dresses and blouses and leggings and jeans and sweaters in every size from too small to way too big, like someone had walked into a department store and grabbed one of everything off the rack without bothering to check sizes.

Anya had made me try a few things on, but when I found a pair of dark jeans that were only slightly loose in the hips and a gray sweater that fit well enough across the shoulders, I stopped.

I didn't need a wardrobe. I needed a way out of here to go home.

The rest of the pile sat untouched on the foot of the bed where the maid had left it.

I knew it was supposed to be a kind gesture from Nikolai, but it felt like adding insult to injury. He thought he owned me, which I resented. But seeing as I was still trapped in his bedroom with no way out, it sort of felt like he owned me. And maybe he was just treating me like a pet. I didn’t chase him out of his own room so he bought me gifts? I didn’t know how to think about it.

The door opened and I looked up to see Anya waddle in with a tray of food. She had a warm smile, and after several conversations over different meals, I'd come to understand she was really a kind-hearted woman. Though still very much Nikolai's pawn, she wished things weren't the way they were. It was the only reason I was patient with her.

"I've got a snack for you…" She cheerily set the tray on the bedside table but frowned at the stack of clothing that was relatively untouched. "I see you've found a new outfit." Her hands weaved together in front of herself, but I wasn't in the mood for pleasantry.

"Not hungry… And you can take the clothing? Half of it's the wrong size."

Ignoring my comment about the clothing, she said, "You need to eat something, Kira. It's been two days again."

"I said, I'm not hungry."

Anya frowned, and I felt bad making her worry or feel concerned. I'd learned previously that she had a child at home too, which made her a mother and gave her that motherly sense of duty and compassion. It was a good quality for a woman to have, but I didn’t need a mother, least of all like her. I neededmymother—if she even cared enough to notice that her daughter had gone missing.

"You're going to make yourself sick."

"Good. Maybe he'll take me to a hospital and I can tell a nurse I've been kidnapped."

The maid sighed hard and scooped up an armful of clothing, though she let a few things remain on the bed. And she left the tray with the snack she had put together for me sitting too, which I refused to eat. Or maybe not so much refused as much as resisted. I didn’t feel hungry. Depression had firmly taken root over the past three weeks that I'd been locked up, effectively killing any desire to eat or even live.