Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
A flight attendant collects our luggage. A waitress serves appetizers and champagne, but my stomach is twisted into too tight a knot to eat or drink. Angelo works on his phone, ignoring me.
Putting my untouched champagne aside, I dare to ask, “How did you find us?”
He looks up. “Street surveillance cameras.” He leans closer, forcing me to shrink back. “Here’s something you need to understand, wife.” His black eyes darken, menace turning his handsome face stunningly savage. “I’ll always find you, no matter where you hide.”
I hold my breath, too afraid to say another word. When he leans back in his chair and spreads his legs out in front of him, I dare to blow out the air trapped in my lungs. I only breathe normally again when he turns his attention back to his phone.
A few minutes later, we walk to the boarding gate. An airport security official returns Angelo’s gun. I have no idea who Angelo bribed to let him carry his gun in the airport and on the plane. Normally, he’d have to collect it at the firearm desk at our destination. Perhaps that’s why two airport security guards escort us to a private plane.
Except for the pilot and copilot who greet us at the door, there’s no other staff. The fact that Angelo and I are alone outside the cockpit fills me with dread and anxiety.
Angelo seats me and buckles me in. He sits down next to me without saying a word. I may as well be invisible. Ignoring me has more to do with trying to control his anger than giving me the cold shoulder, because rage rolls off him in waves. You have to be emotionally challenged not to sense it.
Trying to escape the animosity, I withdraw by looking through the window. Cape Town grows smaller as we climb in altitude. Uncertainty and fear tighten my stomach further when we finally break through the clouds and everything I know disappears.
The seatbelt light goes off.
Angelo unfastens first his safety belt and then mine. Standing, he holds his hand out in silent instruction. I swallow as I stare at that big, broad, powerful hand. I don’t want to take it. I want to run. Only, there’s nowhere to run to when you’re fifteen thousand meters in the air.
Not having a choice, I get to my feet. I don’t take his proffered hand, but even in this, he doesn’t give me an option. He wraps his fingers around mine and pulls me down the short aisle to a door at the back.
My throat closes up with fear when he opens the door to reveal a cabin with a double bed. That fear is nothing compared to the anxiety that nearly cripples me as the door shuts with a soft click. Because that click? It’s the quiet before the storm.
When he lets go, I back up until the bed forms a barrier between us. Daylight filters through the windows on either side of the cabin, but no one can look in. No one will hear me scream. No one can help me. Not even all the angels who ever lived in the fluffy clouds that pass with deceptive gaiety beyond the windows.
Unlike earlier, he watches me with a piercing gaze, focusing every ounce of his attention on me. He advances a step, but I stand my ground.
Danger bleeds from his pores. It surrounds me like thick smoke, invading my lungs and clouding my brain. I can’t think through the fog. I can’t breathe through the darkness that rolls over me, a bank of mist that swallows me whole.
When he finally speaks, it’s to give me a stark, unyielding command. “Take off the dress.”
The order is what I was afraid of. He wants to consummate the marriage. Before, when I gave myself to him, it was in the heat of the moment. This isn’t heat. It’s cold and calculated, premeditatedly staged. I can’t lose myself in passion like this.
Lifting my chin, I ask, “Why?”
Wrong question to ask. His stoic anger melts, slipping into something chillier and more brutal. “Do you really want me to look at you in a dress you put on for another man?” His voice drops an octave. “A dress I fucking chose for me?”
His words make me stagger. “What? Celeste bought the dress.”
He removes his jacket with a fluent motion. “Celeste took it from the villa where I left it when she packed your clothes.” Reaching behind him, he takes the gun from his waistband and puts it on a built-in dressing table. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“No,” I say, the sound coming out of my mouth no more than a whisper. “I just assumed she managed to buy one.”
He raises a mocking brow. “I’m afraid I lost my appetite for that dress. Now, take it off, or I’ll do it for you.”