Heir Untamed - By Danielle Bourdon Page 0,56

I'm sorry we were not able to squeeze in a dance. Maybe next time. If you leave the dress outside your door, I can have someone attempt to fix it.”

“Maybe next time,” she agreed, all while thinking of a dance with Sander instead. In the living room of the cabin, perhaps, or under the stars and moonlight. She glanced down at the front of the pretty gown. “There's an old saying: if it's red, you're dead. I don't think it will come out, but I'll leave it out here anyway when I change.”

“Very well. Good night, Chey.” Mattias bowed his head and pivoted to head down the hallway.

Fishing the key out of her bodice, because there wasn't a spare inch anywhere else on the snug dress, she unlocked her door and let herself inside.

Time to change and reflect on a very unusual day—and night.

. . .

In the spill of light falling in her window, Chey removed the stunning pendant and laid it on the dresser. The diamond shined despite the otherwise dim state of the bedroom. Struggling to get out of the dress, she kicked off her shoes and wiggled the zipper down her spine. What a pity Sander hadn't seen her in it before the advent of the bright red stain. She wondered what he would have thought, and whether he would have liked it.

Preoccupied with pulling a track suit out of her drawers, she made the change and walked the dress to the door. Folding it carefully, she left it just outside. Re-engaging the locks, she padded to the dresser and picked up the necklace. It went back into the original box Elise delivered it in and into her sock drawer. She felt conspicuous leaving it out where anyone might stumble across it. The only people who came and went in her room were the maids, however, and they never touched her personal things. Only the bedding, towels and general cleaning duties.

Stopping by the window, she stared in the direction of the woods. Sander was out there somewhere, doing who knew what at this late hour. Shuffling paperwork, taking care of security business, making plans for their outing tomorrow to the haunted castle. Despite her shower, she could still feel the imprint of his hands on her hips, the texture of his mouth on hers. It would be far too easy to allow that man to really get under her skin in the short time she had to spend here.

And yet, she couldn't imagine not taking advantage of every hour she could. Once she left Latvala, she would probably never see him again. Wasn't that a sobering thought.

Turning toward her bed, she reached down to snag the comforter and tug it back, when something on the surface caught her attention. She hadn't noticed it before, from a distance, because the squares were flat and flush with the material. Letting go of the cover before she could draw it down, she picked up one of the squares. That was when she realized they were paper cutouts, thin and crinkly in her fingers.

Snapping on the bedside table lamp, Chey got her first real look at the nightmare before her. A handful of photos from some local newspaper—or a rag, as Mattias called it—had been arranged haphazardly on the bed. All of them were shots of she and Mattias during their trip to Kalev. Taken with a high powered telephoto lens, it captured their jaunt into the exclusive store, their lunch on the balcony of the restaurant, and the stop at the park.

The message could not be more clear. Someone knew they were going, and had been watching the whole time.

A chill raced down Chey's spine. One of the papers had cutout letters taped to the bottom: You have been warned.

Dropping the papers, Chey straightened and glanced around the room. She hadn't checked the bathroom or the deep, walk in closet since she'd arrived. What if the person was there, waiting to hurt her?

Shuffling to the end of the bed, she jammed her feet into her tennis shoes, foregoing socks in her panic, and backtracked for the cutouts. Gathering them as quietly as she could, she tiptoed to the desk, the hair standing up on the back of her neck, and fished the keys to the truck out of the top drawer.

Any second she expected a shadow to part from the wall, or a corner, and stalk her.

Hurrying to the door, she exited her bedroom and broke into a run down