Dance With Me - By Hayden Braeburn Page 0,20

cooperate. She'd resisted the urge to secure him to the bed, realizing almost too late there was no way to insure he couldn't work his way free. As it was, she wasn't sure taping the wheels of the chair to the floor would hold for too long, but she didn't need it to last forever. Just long enough.

He gave up fighting against the tape, and instead chose to think of what he would say when Priscilla came to him. He knew she wasn't far away, and now he knew just how off her rocker she had become. Did he do that to her? He hadn't meant to be insensitive, but he had been seventeen. He had dated her because she was available, had slept with her because she was willing, but he had never loved her. Given his current circumstances, he doubted she loved him either, but he was sure she would dispute that claim. She said he would marry her or marry no one, and while he'd thought that meant she wanted to kill Kat, what if she planned to kill him? His hands and feet had gone numb, his head felt like he'd been drinking for two days straight, and he might be murdered today. So much for straight to work and straight home.

~*~

“What do you mean my brother isn't here?” Cassidy's dark eyes were hard as she questioned Mason's long-time assistant, Kelly.

The normally cheerful woman shook her head, her red curls bobbing around her heart-shaped face. “I don't know, Miss Everett. He was scheduled in all day today, and his car and things are here, but I haven't seen him.” She tapped a nail against her computer screen. “He has a meeting at one. I don't know where he's run off to, but I'm sure he wouldn't miss it.”

Fuming, Cassidy stormed down the hallway, nearly slamming into Dylan's hard chest. “Do you mind?” she snapped. She had things to do, and getting knocked over by large men was not one of them.

Dylan looked down at the woman who would have been pretty had her mouth not been pinched and her eyes narrowed to slits. “I do mind, lady. You ran into me.”

She stabbed at him with a long finger. “Look, buster, I have places to go and a brother to murder. Step aside.”

Sean chose then to intercede. Cassidy Everett could prove helpful if not provoked further by Black. “Miss Everett, we're here to see your brother.”

“Good luck, then. He's not in his office, Kelly doesn't know where he is—even though she keeps him running like clockwork—and his car is here. Of all the irresponsible things...”

She was left standing in the hallway of Tyler Central Banking's office wing, talking to herself when the two men bolted toward Kelly's desk. “First Mason is nowhere to be found, then you try and knock me over, and now you leave me talking to myself.” She tossed her hands in a helpless gesture. “Great day.”

Dylan heard the woman muttering as they made their way down the hall and into Mason Everett's corner office. Nice digs. Everett's bitchy sister hadn't been lying, at least. There was a navy blue suit jacket in a plush leather chair, and a set of keys and the newest smartphone on the market were on the polished rosewood desk. There was no doubt in his mind Priscilla had abducted the banker. He studied the room, tried to piece together how a woman so small could abduct a man without being seen, while O'Dell put a call in to his partner.

~*~

“Please tell me he's fine and he's just been in meetings all morning so he hasn't answered his phone,” Kat implored Alec when he returned to the home office. He didn't need to answer; his eyes told her all she needed to know. Restless, she paced the room, unable to sit. Mason was missing, and no one knew where Priscilla would have taken him.

“Kat, we don't know what's happened. Sean is talking to local law enforcement, Jamieson has a team on-call, and our offices in New York already have people on this. We'll find him.”

“God, I hope so.” Mason loved her, and look what it got him. He'd spent more money in the last week than a lot of people did in a decade, and now he was kidnapped by a obsessed woman. When they did find him, he'd probably tell her to to have a nice life. She shook her head. No, he wouldn't do that, even if