As he moved toward her, she noticed his confident, sort of predatory walk. His head dipped slightly as he looked down to her shoeless foot. “Did you lose your glass slipper, Cinderella?”
“I think I was kidnapped.” Was it technically a kidnapping when one’s own father was behind it?
“You think? Don’t you remember?”
Remember? What if she couldn’t remember. That would make his life difficult, and she liked the idea of that.
“Who are you?” he asked.
He knew good and well who she was. Okay. That did it. Scaring the stuffing out of a girl then playing dumb was not the way to win a financée and influence people. She plastered a confused expression on her face and rubbed her fingertips over her forehead. “I—I can’t remember.”
He gave her a doubtful look. “You’re not going to faint, are you?”
Why not? she thought. She needed a ride; this guy needed a lesson.
She made herself go limp and dropped like a stone.
September 15, 2004
Jordan Bishop said goodbye to terror and went straight to furious. Being kidnapped was not the way she’d planned to start her first vacation in two years.
She looked at the guy who’d abducted her. He was hardly more than a kid, an average-looking young man. Average height, average looks and average brown hair. They’d been waiting on this deserted road for what felt like hours, and he’d refused to tell her why. Jordan was fed up.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.
He glanced over at her from the driver’s seat. “Do you see one, sweetheart?” His voice was rife with sarcasm.
That does it, she thought.
She pressed her legs together. “I wonder how this leather seat would hold up in the event of an unfortunate accident.”
That wiped the sarcastic expression off his face. “You gotta go in the bushes.”
“Any port in a storm,” she replied.
She’d been terrified when he’d grabbed her, expecting to be assaulted or murdered any second. But that feeling faded when he kept driving. After stopping, he hadn’t made a single threatening move. It felt like he was waiting for something. And she didn’t intend to be around when the wait was over.
He got out of the car and walked around to her side, opening the door with his keys in his hand. He unlocked the cuff hooked to the passenger handhold above her head. The other cuff was attached to her wrist. When he glanced away to put his keys back in his pocket, she swiveled in her seat and kicked out as hard as she could with both legs, making him stumble backward. If she’d known she would be in this mess, she’d have dressed more appropriately. Now was no time to worry about her tight skirt. At least it was short, giving her some maneuverability.
While the creep was getting his footing, Jordan jumped out of the SUV. She winced when a small rock dug into her bare heel. She’d lost one of her pumps when he’d first grabbed her.
He grinned. “Nice try.”
“I thought so.”
As he started toward her, she braced for her next move. She was about to find out if all those self-defense classes were worth the price. When he put his hands on her upper arms, she jabbed the three-inch spike heel of her remaining pump into his instep. He cried out, but before he could react, she raised her knee and rammed it into his groin. He grunted in pain and doubled over wheezing, then dropped to the ground groaning. This was the part where she was supposed to run like hell.
But where? Even if she knew which way to run, she was out in the sticks, with no sign of civilization in sight. She had to get the keys, but she didn’t want to get in too close to him. Even though he was still rolling around and groaning. But how long did it take a man to recover from a knee to the groin?
“Bishop’s not paying me enough for this,” he muttered to himself.
Bishop? He couldn’t have said what she thought she’d heard. “What did you say? Who’s paying you?” she demanded.
He glared at her. “Your father.”
“My father? I don’t believe you.”
“I couldn’t make up something this weird,” he said, sitting up. “He hired me to kidnap you.”
“Why?”
“It’s a setup. To find you a man.”
“You?” she asked, shocked.
“No. And I resent your implication and your tone.”