The Blackmailed Bride

This man wasn’t thrown. Neither did he fall into the category of those who politely pretended not to notice the marks. Seb had been one of those—Seb who, despite his protests that it really didn’t matter to him, had never been able to bring himself to touch the scarred area.

This man had no such qualms. He took the arm she defiantly offered between his big hands and turned it slightly sideways, rubbing his thumb lightly over the shiny scar tissue as he did so. Kate shivered and the blue eyes lifted momentarily.

‘A burn?’ There was not a shred of pity in his expression and over the years Kate had become something of an expert at detecting it.

She cleared her throat, it felt raw and achey. ‘Are you always this morbidly curious…?’

‘You are not comfortable discussing it?’

Not just mad, bad and indisputably dangerous, he had to turn out to be into amateur psychology—this just got better and better! ‘Not with homicidal maniacs.’

‘Do you know many homicidal maniacs?’

Kate shook her head. ‘Most murders are domestic,’ she announced authoritatively. ‘If you’ve seen enough…do you mind…?’ she added, with a cool nod to her arm. It was hard to project cool when this man’s touch made her shiver.

He straightened up and their eyes met again. Kate had the impression he saw through her bravado, saw right through to the insecure teenager she’d once been, still learning to cope with the occasional stare or rude comment. Disliking the feeling of vulnerability, she shook her head to dispel the scary illusion as she pulled the fabric back down over her arm.

‘I hope,’ he remonstrated severely, touching the stretchy cotton fabric of her top, ‘you do not cover yourself all the time.’

This whole situation, she decided, was getting distinctly surreal. She was getting personal advice from someone who waited in dark rooms for blackmailing drug-dealers. Perhaps working with the criminals had given her a unique rapport with the fraternity; if her mother was to be believed, it had given her a twisted and cynical outlook on life.

‘Only when I’m doing a spot of breaking and entering.’ She bit her lip. Irony was a luxury a person in her position could not afford. Then, emboldened by the unexpected gleam of amusement in his eyes, she nodded towards the photos. ‘Listen,’ she continued in her most persuasive tone—there was no point dismissing out of hand the slim possibility that he was human, after all. ‘I honestly don’t know your friend, so why don’t I just leave and forget I ever saw you?’

‘Friend? Por Dios…!’

Kate backed away from the lash of contemptuous fury in his voice and carried on backing nervously until the sound of the heavy-set second thug clearing his throat significantly brought her to an abrupt halt. She looked over her shoulder and discovered he was positioned, arms folded across his massive chest, in front of the only exit.

‘I tell you, I don’t know him. I’m just a guest here. I only arrived today…’

As she’d appealed to his partner, the second man sauntered up to join him—Kate had almost forgotten his silent presence. She turned her head as the flashlight he carried shone momentarily in her eyes. ‘If we let her go, she could warn him we’re on to him.’

The sinister significance of this observation was not lost on Kate, who paled with alarm. ‘If,’ she exclaimed shrilly. ‘What do you mean, if? You lay a finger or try and stop me leaving and I’ll make so much noise…’

The one in command winced at her shrill tone. ‘Make any more noise than you already are and a concerned guest or member of staff might call the police.’

The best news she’d heard all day—and a long, long day it had been. Had it only been this morning she’d boarded the flight to Palma…? Somehow this wasn’t quite the Sangria and sunset sort of end to the day she’d anticipated.

‘Let’s cut out the middle man,’ she suggested tartly, reaching for the phone and holding it out to him. Her scars might not have fazed him but Kate could tell her response had taken him aback, and maybe he was right. Maybe she was acting foolishly—somehow, though, she didn’t think tears and pleas were going to get her very far.

‘And I would naturally feel obligated to hand over these,’ he tauntingly wafted the pack of photos in front of her nose.

‘And they’d believe your story? I think I might have a little more credibility with the police than you,’ she countered calling his bluff.

For some reason, this claim caused his companion to laugh, though he did sober up fast enough when he was on the receiving end of a silencing glare.

‘You think so?’

He wasn’t to her mind displaying the sort of dismay a shady character like him ought to when threatened with the forces of law. Perhaps he hid his illicit dealings behind a legitimate front, she speculated uneasily.

‘I’m a very respectable person.’

‘Now, I might be swayed by the throbbing note of conviction and the big brown eyes…but the police, they generally like more concrete proof…’

‘You want proof…right.’ With a triumphant smile of pure relief she remembered the card in her pocket. ‘That’s me, K. M. Anderson.’ She shoved her credit card under his nose. ‘I’m sharing one of the bungalows with my—with a friend…’ No need, she decided, to involve Susie.

‘You could have stolen it,’ he replied glancing without interest at her gold card. ‘In fact, under the circumstances, I’d say that’s highly likely.’

Kate’s chest swelled with indignation, a fact that didn’t escape her tormentor’s notice. Kate’s eyes began to sparkle angrily as his eyes dropped with unabashed interest on the heaving contours. To her horror, she felt her nipples harden and peak.

Lecherous creep, she thought, her anger intensified by the treacherous reactions of her body and the accelerated rate of her heartbeat.

‘One of the things I hate most in this world is men who can’t keep their eyes on a woman’s face when they’re talking to her!’ she announced with scornful defiance.

That refocused his attention all right; the astonished blue gaze instantly zoomed in on her face.

The startled gasp, followed by a low chuckle, didn’t come from the man whose enigmatic scrutiny was making her wish like mad she’d kept quiet on the subject, but from his partner.

‘As I was saying,’ she began doggedly, ‘I didn’t steal the card. It’s mine. I brought it along in case the door was…’ She stopped abruptly, her eyes growing round in dismay as she bit back the incriminating explanation.

‘Locked…?’ The fascinating network of fine lines around his cerulean eyes deepened.

Kate felt her guilty blush deepen.

‘What a resourceful woman you are…. You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

‘Why should I? You haven’t told me why you’re here and I’m pretty sure it’s not by invitation,’ she murmured stroppily.

‘Hush!’ he admonished, cutting her off with abrupt urgency before turning to his companion. ‘Serge, did you hear that?’

The hot flare of anticipation Kate glimpsed in his blue eyes suggested to her that she was dealing with an adrenaline junkie, the type who got high on danger, she speculated. The sort that took risks and got a kick out of doing so. She’d often noted these two qualities, allied with a callous disregard for the law, in some of her clients—men who, had they channelled their talents into less anti-social endeavours, would probably have made very successful businessmen, or even for that matter lawyers like herself.

The other man nodded and replied softly. ‘It could be Gonzalez?’

The light was suddenly doused and Kate’s hopeful ears were rewarded by the sound of footsteps on the paved area outside the window. She didn’t care who it was, it was the chance she’d been waiting for. She opened her mouth to cry for help.

Before she had a chance to raise the alarm, a large hand clamped down hard over her parted lips whilst another twisted her arm behind her back. ‘You want to warn your lover?’ a cold, hateful voice rasped mockingly in her ear, Kate tried to turn her head, hating his contempt, hating the sensation of his warm breath on her neck, and fearing the confusing ripples of sensation it created. ‘I don’t think so…’

Biting his hand as hard as she could was not the most subtle response, but Kate was desperate by this point.

He didn’t cry out, even though she felt the salty tang of blood on her tongue, but his grip did slacken—only slightly, but it was the moment Kate had been tensely waiting for. It was enough to allow her to break free. With a determined, sinuous wriggle, she twisted away from him and even before she was upright began to run. Head down, she hit the floor, running like a sprinter ducking desperately for the winning line.

CHAPTER THREE

KATE opened her eyes and moaned. She looked around groggily. This was new—waking up in a strange bed, in a strange bedroom. Not all new experiences were good ones and actually this was one she could well have lived without!

She couldn’t have amnesia. She knew her name; she could even recite her pin number and other personal details. She just didn’t recall the events that had culminated in her being in this bed—maybe this was an occurrence some girls could take in their stride, but not her. Don’t panic, Kate, she told herself, there has to be a perfectly simple explanation for this.

The problem was, try as she might, she couldn’t come up with it. She attacked the problem with her usual vigour and all she got for her troubles was a brain ache.