He was silent.
Oh no. Had she gone too high too fast? Or would he get angry knowing she’d low-balled him. She was, he had to know since she was his mark, seriously loaded.
While these thoughts flitted through her brain she felt his body shaking under hers.
She lifted her head and saw he was smiling. The shaking of the body was him silently laughing.
“I wasn’t being funny,” she told him, losing patience.
“You think I’ve kidnapped you,” he told her.
Her mouth dropped open (again).
“Sorry?” she asked after she’d closed it.
His head tipped down and he nuzzled his temple against hers in that tender way she told herself she hated (when she absolutely didn’t) before saying, “Baby doll, I haven’t kidnapped you.”
All of a sudden she was angry because he called her “baby doll” and the fact that this man, in real life, did that was the worst cosmic joke of all.
Maybe this made her stupid, but she didn’t care.
She yanked her head back.
“Okay, Callum, this is what I know,” she stated. “Two guys break into my house, they grab me, discuss raping me and, suddenly, even though it’s the middle of the night and I haven’t made a noise, you’re there to save the day. Instead of calling the police or an ambulance as I’d lost consciousness, you take me out of the city to a remote cabin in the woods. A cabin which conveniently has brand new clothes and toiletries, all that perfectly suit me. You’re all sweet, but bossy at the same time, and I know your game. You’re not my rescuer. You know I’m wealthy. Name your price, give me your phone, I’ll arrange the money for you, no problem. Then you take me home so I can get on with Christmas and you can go to the beach or find someone else to con.”
He studied her a moment seemingly unperturbed by her understanding of the situation and the blunt way with which she informed him of that fact and replied, “All right, Sonia, now you’ll listen to what’s actually going on.”
“This should be good,” Sonia muttered sarcastically.
“No, it won’t be good,” he returned severely. “It’ll probably freak you out, it’s likely you won’t believe a word I say but it’s also the truth.”
She glared at him.
He sighed.
Then he spoke and committed sin number three.
Furthermore, he was right. What he said freaked her out. But the way he said it made her know he believed it, which made it all the worse.
“Last night, two men broke into your house. I knew they were going to do it because I had intelligence delivered to me eleven hours earlier informing me of the plot. I am, for the sake of you understanding this, the leader of a gang that has hundreds of thousands of members across the world. They were soldiers from another, rival, gang. You, little one, are important to me. They know this and wanted to take you from me. What they did broke a treaty that was fragile at best. Now we’re at war.”
Sonia was no longer glaring at him.
She was gawking.
She wanted to stop the questions from coming. She just couldn’t.
“You’re the leader of a gang?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“That has hundreds of thousands of members?”
“Yes.”
She stared at his handsome face.
He was good-looking. No doubt about it.