Billionaire Erotic Romance Boxed Set: 7 Steamy Full-Length Novels (172 page)

“Answer me!” I demanded.

Once again, I was greeted with silence. I walked over to the desk and grabbed the chair, lifting it up.

“NOW!” I screamed, enraged.

“Put the chair down, Samantha. You’re only going to hurt yourself. The glass is bullet-proof safety glass, military grade. You’d need a howitzer to do any real damage to it,” the electronic voice said. I could hear a note of amused humor in it.

I saw red. I always thought that “seeing red” was an expression, but in that moment, the whole room was coated in a shade of red and I could feel my brain boiling with a rage that I had never previously experienced. I had been captured. I had been groped. I had been stripped of my clothes. I was in this prison cell and now I was being mocked. I had reached my breaking point.

I threw the chair at the mirror. It bounced off and struck the cot. I picked it up and with all my might I smashed it into the glass, driving my entire body into it. It vibrated violently in my hands as it bounced off and pain shot through my arms and shoulders. The chair flew back and I let it go, falling back from the recoil of my own strike.

I sat on the ground, fuming in rage. Tears of anger flowed down my face and I wiped them off defiantly. I raised myself up and turned back to the glass. There was a large scuff mark when I had struck it with the chair and I noticed a hairline crack. Breathing heavy with exhaustion, I let out a cry of triumph at my small victory over the glass that the voice had claimed was unbreakable.

“Strike at the glass again and there will be consequences, as well as reduced rations.” The voice was without humor now. I heard a click and the television turned back on.

I picked up the chair and placed it on its legs. It wobbled slightly as one leg was slightly bent now. I sat down and rocked it back and forth, reveling in the imbalance of it due to my strike. It was a meaningless act of defiance, but it had felt good in the moment. The victory was short-lived however. I was still imprisoned.

I drank the cold soup and slurped noodles, my hunger returning to me. I drank another glass of water and ate the last of the tasteless noodles. I figured there would probably be no tea or coffee for me today. I couldn’t help but smile.

I studied the room. Despite my fervent belief that the door would be locked, I tried it anyway. The handle did not budge a centimeter. I walked around the small room and studied the cot. I ran my hands over the safety glass over the television, standing on the chair to reach it. I looked at the two speakers closely and soon lost interest.

There was a small bathroom in the corner, but without any kind of walls or privacy barrier from the two-way mirror. There was a small toilet, a sink, and a shower head poking out of the wall. In front of the shower head on the ground was a small drain. I laughed at the thought of showering here, giving the kidnappers a nice show. I’d rather stink so bad that I couldn’t even handle the smell before I would strip willingly in front of these men again.

I washed my hands and face in the sink using the bar of soap that was left for me. I toweled myself off with a brand new towel that was folded and resting on top of the toilet tank. It was surprisingly soft.

I turned the television to the guide channel that listed all the stations and programming. It also listed the time, which was what I was really looking for. It had been six hours since I had been taken from outside of my apartment. How long until Alex knew I was gone? Surely he must know by now, whether Gary was alive or dead. I thought of Gary again and hoped he was all right. He had really tried to protect me.

I laid on the bed and closed my eyes, positive that no sleep would come, but when it did, I welcomed it anyway.

Chapter Seventeen

I slept a dreamless sleep. When I awoke, my mind tried to grab onto the reality that I was now trapped. I looked around the room, confident that I was dreaming, but when I shook myself and rubbed my eyes, the room only cleared and became all that much more real. I was still in this prison. There was no escaping it. I was trapped.

The television was off. On the desk was a bowl of oatmeal, two hard-boiled eggs, and a cup of green tea, still warm. I rose out of bed and walked over to the desk. I sat in the chair and rocked it back and forth. The legs were still uneven from my attack earlier and I laughed to myself. I ate the almost tasteless food ravenously and drank down the green tea in one large gulp. I drank two glasses of water and sat back in the chair, full from the food.

I turned the television on and scanned the channels. I turned to the guide station again and checked the time. It had been fourteen hours since I had been captured. Alex must know by now that I had been taken. At the very least, he must be worried that something had happened, especially given the threats against me recently.

My mind returned to the photograph. My anger over the vile nature of the threats was still there. There was no doubting that the same people who had threatened me had carried out my kidnapping. Now, the question remained as to what my future held.

I thought of Alex again and my promise to myself that I was going to be freed of this prison and in his arms once again. I reaffirmed this promise, muttering it under my breath. Hearing it from my lips gave me a newfound confidence in my belief that he was going to rescue me. I had faith in Alexander Strauss.

I assessed my situation again. I was trapped in a small room, but I hadn’t been tortured. I had been kidnapped very roughly, but then again, I didn’t think that a “gentle kidnapping” was a real thing. I felt over my body and there were no soft spots of pain aside from my wrists. I studied my wrists and the red bands that wrapped around them caused by the rope that had tied them together. There were no real cuts or anything that would leave a scar. In a day or two, my hands would look like nothing had happened. I would get out of this situation without any lingering wounds. At least without physical ones.

“You won’t fight alone,” I had said to Alex the previous night. The memory came back slowly. It seemed like days ago that I had sat in the finest restaurant in the city, a restaurant that Alex owned, and ate delicious food and drank expensive white wine while we stared at each other longingly.

So far, I had only thought about my own situation, naturally. Now I wondered if maybe they hadn’t struck at Alex at the same time as me. What if they were holding both of us until the company fell apart or was overtaken by those who were trying to bring Alex down? What if Alex was only one room away from me, enduring the same imprisonment? I looked to the concrete wall and considered this. It seemed like a remote possibility to me, but I couldn’t suppress the fear over the thought.

If Alex had been taken too, who would come for me?

The answer was clear. If Alex was in the room next to me, no one was coming. I couldn’t let the thought take on any reality. If I gave in to the idea that we were both captured, then I would lose any will to fight.

I laid on the bed, turning off the television to think. I reflected on my life before I had met Alexander Strauss. Before I had called him an arrogant prick in the employee cafeteria. Why did it have to be that day that Emily and I had to have that conversation? Before that day, no one had even seen Alexander Strauss in the building, let alone the employee cafeteria. Why was he even in there that day? If he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be sitting in this prison right now.

Slowly, doubt began to enter my thoughts. I began to doubt that I had made the right decision. I thought of the day that I had stood before Alex, ready to resign and leave the company forever. It would have had no impact on him at all. I was just a temp, totally replaceable. Yet Alex must not have thought so. He told me he saw something incredibly valuable, maybe even invaluable, in me.

Anybody would have accepted that deal. Hell, even the pay alone was enough to make it an offer no one in their sane mind would refuse. Although my new pay scale wasn’t doing me a lot of good in this prison.

It wasn’t just the money that had made me accept the deal. Alexander Strauss was too interesting to walk away from. I wanted to be around him in any way that I could. I wanted him to open me to new experiences, both sexually and professionally. I had never felt the things that he made me feel, that he brought out in me. But had I really been aware of the dangers I was getting into?

If I had known that I would be sitting in a prison cell, humiliated and abused, would I have accepted the agreement?

Alex had given me an out when things began to heat up. He had concealed nothing from me, even in the beginning. I had entered into our agreement knowing that he thought things would get dangerous. But my mind still focused on whether I had made the right choice or not. Alexander Strauss or not.

I had grown so much in such a short amount of time. I had gone from a temp office worker to somebody who brokered international deals with multi-billion dollar companies. I was such an asset that people sought to kidnap me in order to influence events within a company that was poised to change the world.

There were so many questions that floated through my mind. I wished I could answer them. Tears formed in my eyes and I tried to fight them back.

I was once a girl who had been so proud of organizing an event for a student organization in college. I had accomplished something real, I still believed that, but it had been so risk-free in comparison. I had overcome the challenges of the night, but at no point did someone threaten my physical well-being.

I let myself cry. I was scared. Terrified.

I wiped away tears from my eyes and turned on the television to distract myself.

The channels began to change. I looked down at the remote in my hand; I wasn’t pressing any buttons. Someone else was controlling the television. The channels began to change quickly, picking up speed as they went. The sound grew louder until it began to rattle my ears. I raised the remote to turn off the television and nothing happened when I pressed the power button. I dropped the remote next to me on the cot and rolled over.

Then I heard a sound that made my heart jump in my chest. It was a voice, Alex’s voice.

“Please, I’m in a hurry and I can make no comment,” Alex said to a woman holding a microphone out to him.

I sat up in the bed and adrenaline rushed into my veins. I was breathing fast. The reporter continued on.

“Alex! Alex! Who was the mystery girl you were with last night?”

Last night. I fixated my mind on that phrase. This was either live television or had been filmed recently. I had been in here for less than twenty-four hours. More importantly, Alex had not been caught. Hope surged in my chest and I felt almost giddy.

The television changed channels to the guide channel again and I scrambled for the remote. It worked again and I lowered the volume to a level that didn’t threaten to blow out my eardrums before I began scanning the channels, desperately searching for the show that had previously been on. I scanned through all the channels three times before I admitted defeat.

I fixated my mind on the image of Alex. It had been brief, agonizingly brief, but even seeing him in that fleeting moment had renewed something in me.

However, my mind was racing with even more questions than before. Why was the reporter trying to interview Alexander Strauss about me specifically? And just what channel had that been on? The woman’s back had been to the camera and there had been no channel logo anywhere on the screen. Whoever was holding me in this prison cell had wanted me to see it, had forced me to see it.

I scanned through the channels and stopped on an entertainment channel that specialized in celebrity gossip. Soon enough my heart jumped again when it showed a brief clip on Alexander Strauss making an appearance at his famed restaurant. I saw myself walk by on the screen. I could hardly recognize myself, I had looked beautiful. But laying on my cot in a prison cell, I felt deflated. Seeing myself the previous night made me feel hopeless for some reason, like that life was a million miles away.

The story made no mention of me. No mention of the reporter asking Alex who I was. This channel had not cared to know who his date was, let alone sent a reporter to interrogate Alex as to my identity.

I stood from the cot and turned to the two-way mirror.

“Why did you set up that fake reporter to interview Alex about me? What kind of sick game is this?” I demanded.

Silence. No electronic voice came over the loudspeakers to admonish me or even confirm my suspicions.

“I may not know why, yet, but you’re not fooling me. That was as fake as they come.”

I laid back on the cot and turned the channel to the guide station again. Time was ticking away in my prison cell. Slowly ticking away. Hours passed and I watched television. More time passed and I began to grow tired. Sitting around all day made me feel more exhausted than even the most hectic days at the office. I resolved that I would get some sleep and then when I woke up, I would do some sort of exercise to regain my strength.

I wrapped myself in my thin wool sheet and turned the television off. When sleep came, I closed my eyes to awaken to being free.

It was a dream. It had to be a dream. I was standing on the top floor of the Strauss Engines building. It was Alexander Strauss’s office. I looked around and the office stretched for miles. Yet when I looked up, there was no ceiling. Above me there was only a clear blue sky filled with a warm sun. I searched the sky and I could find no clouds. There was no wind. It was a perfect day.

“I’ve missed you,” Alex’s voice said in my ear. I could feel his breath tickle my skin and I let out a little giggle and turned around. Alex stood there before me, naked. There was an aura of energy around him, faint but vibrating. I felt pulled towards him.

I was wearing a sundress that fell away and disappeared as I touched Alex. His skin was warm and firm, the way it was in my memory. I ran my hands along the curves of his arm, tracing the crevices carved out by his lean muscle. My fingertips relished the feel of the veins along his forearms as they slowly traced the lines they carved out in his skin. Our fingers enveloped each other’s and we held hands, squeezing gently.