my career,” he said. “Something that will end my campaign before it begins.”
I wished I had some water. My mouth dried, but that wasn’t as bad as my twisting stomach. It wasn’t a good time for morning sickness.
I faked confidence. “I thought we had an agreement. You stay away from Maddox, and I wouldn’t reveal to every media outlet in the state that you threatened to kill him.”
“Right.” Nolan sneered. “Because you love him.”
“More than anything.”
“I could have given you more than him.” He snickered. “You think my little threat is bad? Do you even know the type of man Maddox is? If you knew the things he’s done, you’d regret denying me.”
“But he’s never kidnapped me,” I said. “Never threatened anyone I love. Never hurt me when I refused him. Never presumed to know what was best for me.”
“I’m in love with you, Josie.”
“Then untie me. Let me go.”
Nolan swore. The hair on my neck rose. I didn’t like this side of him. He was bad enough in public, forcing me into meetings and conversations, but at least there we had a reputation to maintain.
Here? Isolated? Alone? The drugs he used to knock me out were potent, and my head still ached. I had to get away from him before he did something worse than kidnap me.
Before his love turned into lust.
“I want the recording you made of me. Delete it.” Nolan ran a thick tongue over his lip. “And maybe I can offer you something that will put all this unpleasantness behind us.”
“What deal?”
“I’ll help you rebuild your shop.”
“Will you bring a hammer and nails?”
He unfolded a paper from his pocket and held it up so I can see. “This is the original property deed and survey to your land. Bob Ragen was right. The land was subdivided improperly, and the county never recorded it. Technically…” He smiled. “You own both lots. Bob has no case against you.”
I leaned away in the chair. Nolan only stepped closer. “You kidnapped me to show me a clerical error from fifty years ago?”
“I thought you’d be happier.”
“I’d clap, but I can’t move my hands.”
Nolan liked that. “You’ll need money to rebuild. It’s yours.”
“Are you bribing me, or am I blackmailing you?”
“Call it a loan, no interest for the first ten years,” he said. “I’ll become the primary investor in your property and refuse my share of the profits. You get your shop back, your customers, your livelihood. Perhaps that would give you reason to forgive past indiscretions.”
“Nothing will forgive what you’ve done.”
“That’s your part of this arrangement, Josie.” Nolan brushed my cheek. His touch chilled me, rotten and vile. “I need you to control Maddox. Can you do that?”
No. “That’ll be hard to do. You kidnapped me.”
“He doesn’t have to know that.”
“You want me to pretend you didn’t force me from my home in the middle of the night, drugged up and half-naked?”
His hand drifted lower, teasing the hem line of my shirt. He tugged it up, up, up, revealing a sliver of dark skin just over my navel. I hoped he didn’t see me tremble.
“I could have done worse.”
“No doubt.”
“You would have liked it.”
“You’re disgusting.”
His slap was hard, fierce against my cheek. “We still have an opportunity to try, Josie. Don’t tempt me?”
“Pity I don’t have my phone here to record that.”
His second slap struck harsher than the first. The chair teetered, and I fell on my side.
My stomach heaved. Nothing came up but only because I had nothing left in me. I hadn’t eaten. My head throbbed. I was naked, cold, and Nolan’s compromise was looking less and less like something that would benefit me.
Nolan hauled me up from the floor, slicing through the ropes binding me to the chair with a knife I didn’t know he concealed in his pocket. He kicked the chair away and held me up for his inspection. I danced on my tippy-toes while he leered at me.
Whatever defiance I showed before, whatever challenge I issued only pissed him off. I had to rein it back, take some sort of control.
If not for me then for the baby I carried.
“Okay,” I said. “You give me a loan to rebuild my shop, and I won’t release the recording of you. I’ll delete it. No one has to know it happened.”
“Maddox will know.”
I swallowed. My toes barely scraped the ground, and the ropes tugged too hard. “In case you haven’t noticed, you are the reason he left me. I haven’t seen or heard from him in