Blind Ambition (10 page)

Whatever you want?
Good God, what the hell was she thinking?

“Quiet.” Petitt said, his voice deadly calm. Then he jerked his head toward the goons holding Dan.

Pain exploded at the back of Dan’s head and the world went dark.

When Dan awoke, he was lying prone on a hard, rough surface. His head throbbed and he shivered despite the stifling warmth of the air, suddenly aware that his arms and legs were bare. He took stock of his body’s complaints but didn’t sense any injuries beyond a possible concussion.

He opened his eyes and waited for them to focus. Dusty light swirled in from above, and he spied Alexa sitting propped against a cement wall several feet away from him, her eyes closed. She wore only her black sports bra and matching underwear. His stomach sank. Had they…?

“Alexa?” His voice came out as barely a whisper. He tried rolling to his back, but his wrists were bound behind him. So were his ankles. Ignoring his pounding skull, he used his shoulder and forehead to push onto his knees.

Something jerked on his arms with a loud
clank
, sending sharp pain through his shoulders. He stifled a groan and looked back. His handcuffs were attached to the wall with a chain.

Her eyes snapped open and she straightened. “Dan! Oh, thank God. I thought…” She blinked several times and took a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

“Just a headache,” he said, settling onto his heels. “What about you?” He didn’t see any new bruises, but his blood boiled at the sight of the nasty one on her ribs.

“I’m fine.” As if she could read his mind, she said, “They didn’t hurt me. They stripped us down to check for weapons.”

As warm as the tiny cell was, the lack of clothing might have been a blessing. Unless mosquitoes ate them alive. He looked around the room. It was just like the one he’d found her in before, but slightly larger. Maybe six-by-six. If they both sat with their legs out, they could probably touch feet.

“How did we get here?” he asked.

“Jeep. He blindfolded me, so I don’t know where we are, but I think we went north out of Terre Verte.” She sat with her knees bent to the side, arms behind her back. “The drive was probably about thirty minutes, but I’m not sure because I was pretty scared.”

“That’s great information,” Dan said. “We’re probably near L’eau Bleue where the Bent Palms resort is.”

She made a disgusted face. “A lot of good it does when we’re stuck here tied to the wall.”

“We’ll figure out something.” Or not. But what else did he have to do besides work on a plan?

“I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have gone to the clinic.”

“Hey.” Dan shook his head. “We didn’t have much choice under the circumstances.”

“Maybe.” She focused on her knees. He tried hard not to. Or any other part of her bare body for that matter. “I can’t believe Troy gave us up like that. And after all the clinic has done for those people, someone still let SIR know I was in the village.”

“Whoever it was probably believes he’s protecting his family. A man will do anything for someone he loves.”

Her gaze flashed up to his and then skittered away.

No, he didn’t love her—though he’d been close before she tossed him aside—but he cared about her. He’d been mad at her for years, but he realized now that his anger should have been turned inward. It wasn’t her fault that he’d taken a no-strings fling in the jungle and tried to make it into a serious relationship.

They’d never made promises to each other. He’d been the one to break the unspoken rules of their affair.

“Did you see any sign of the children when they brought us in?” he asked.

She frowned and shook her head. “They didn’t remove my blindfold until after they put me in here with you.” Pain tightened her eyes. “I just hope they’re taking care of Flore. Nillin wouldn’t tell me anything.”

What could Dan say? He’d failed her in every sense. The children were missing, Alexa was back in rebel hands, and no one on the outside knew where they were.
Motherfucker.

He shifted onto his butt and leaned against the wall to keep his legs from going numb. “Any idea how long we’ve been in here?”

“I dozed, but the angle of the sun doesn’t look too different. Maybe half an hour?” She shrugged.

“I’m sorry.”

She looked at him. “For what?”

“For not doing a better job of protecting you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who wanted to stay on the island.”

Still his fault. He only had one real job—to keep her safe—and he’d blown it. His gut turned to lead when he thought about how vulnerable she was, the things the rebels could do to her. And he was in no position to stop them. He wanted to put his fist through Frederick Jeannot’s face.

Focus.
His rage wouldn’t keep her safe or help them escape.

He forced himself to take several deep breaths and put his head back, letting his gaze wander their tiny prison. Cement block walls, corrugated metal roof, screened gap at the top of each wall to let in fresh air and light.

Who made these things? And why? Was there some guy out there who advertised himself as an expert cell builder? Did SIR really kidnap enough people to warrant building these tiny prisons, or had they served some other purpose?

Regardless, there was no obvious way out even if he could get free. The door appeared to be metal, painted a dull gray like the furniture in Kurt’s office at Steele. It had a reinforced lock that he might be able to pick with time and the right tools—and free hands—of which he only had the first.

After a thorough perusal of their temporary home, he tried to get a glimpse of his bindings. The handcuffs and chain were solidly attached to the wall with a large bolt drilled through a metal plate. His feet were bound with rope, but even if he lay on his stomach like a tied hog, he wouldn’t be able to work on the knot. It was in front, out of reach.

“I didn’t see any obvious ways to get free,” Alexa said.

Keeping his gaze averted—because she took his breath away even at a time like this, when he had no right to be thinking about her near-nakedness—he said, “Yeah. Pretty secure. I’m thinking maybe they’ve done this before.”

She ignored his sarcasm. “They didn’t tie me up last time. But then I fought pretty hard before the guard tried to—”

“You did good.” He wanted to tell her he wouldn’t let anyone touch her, but he was in no position to make that kind of promise. The rebels needed her. She was money. Him? Not so much. In fact, he didn’t even know why they hadn’t killed him already.

Not that he was complaining.

“It wasn’t good enough,” she said. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I’m not sure I would have survived.”

The thought of her pinned beneath that kid made Dan’s stomach roll. And if it happened again, what could he do? A shitload of nothing.

“If one of those guys tries anything again, you do whatever it takes to fight him off, Lys. I mean it.
Whatever it fucking takes.
” He pulled against his chains, straining his muscles to the max, but there was no give in his restraints.

She watched him as he sat there breathing hard from his exertion. “When did you quit the PJs?” she asked in a soft voice.

He raised his eyebrows. Did she care or was she just bored? “About two years ago.” A year after she’d dumped him. Was it sad that almost every event in his life had been categorized as Before Alyssa or After Alyssa? Of course, he’d have to rename those categories.

“Why?”

Good God. He didn’t really want to go there, but what the hell? Spilling his guts might be a mistake, but what was one more fuckup at this point? “My wife maxed out all of our credit cards and I came home from Afghanistan to a mountain of debt. So I jettisoned her and the Air Force and went to work for a private security company called Claymore. You might have heard of them. They were in the news recently.” Another clusterfuck he didn’t want to think about. Another failure on his part.

She gaped at him. Which part had shocked her most? His financial situation, Mary, or the fact that he’d worked for the evil Claymore?

“You were married?” Her voice came out as a high-pitched squeak.

Okay, so, Mary. “Yeah.” Did Alexa find it so hard to believe a woman might want to marry him?

“This was after…”—she cocked her head—“us?”

He nodded. He could say more, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her the whole sordid story. Especially the part where he’d proposed to Mary to prove—to himself and everyone else—that he was over Alexa. Fucking idiotic now that he looked back on it. And he’d been paying for it ever since.

And then he realized what she was asking. “Wait. You don’t think I would have been with you while I was married to someone else, do you?”

Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away. “You wouldn’t be the first man to cheat on his wife.” She paused. “Or girlfriend.”

“Jesus. I would never—” He stopped himself. Clearly she’d done the math and realized he got married not long after leaving St. Isidore. He and Mary had stopped dating the first time several months before he met Alexa, but he didn’t owe her an explanation. Didn’t really want her to know how much she’d messed him up.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s not how I think of you. I was just…surprised.”

“What?” His voice turned hard. “You imagined me pining away for you? Too heartbroken to move on. Is that it?”

Her cheeks reddened and she looked down.

“You did.” He couldn’t keep the disgust out of his voice. Never mind that it was true, he still didn’t want her thinking of him like that. Like some sad schmuck who never got over the woman he couldn’t have.

She swallowed hard and met his gaze again. “I guess I hoped that our time together meant as much to you as it did to me.”

What the hell?
“I was under the impression that it didn’t mean much to you at all. In fact, you made your feelings very clear.” He didn’t want to sound angry. Anger meant that he cared. But he couldn’t help it.

“I lied.”

His heart skipped, and for second he wondered… Then he gave himself a mental slap. He had no idea why she was doing this, but he wasn’t falling for it. “Yeah. I must admit the whole shipping heiress thing was quite a surprise. You’re not the snobby bitch I would have expected, though.” He’d dealt with enough of them that he thought he could spot them from several klicks.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Now she was angry.
Good
. “I—”

“Save it. None of that matters now.” He didn’t want to think about it anymore. Didn’t care what her reasons were. It wouldn’t change anything.

He moved to his knees and began wrestling with the rope on his ankles, trying to slide it around. “We need to find a way to get out of here.”

She looked away and clamped her mouth shut, her cheeks ruddy.

Twenty minutes later they were no closer to escape. The cell was devoid of anything but a bucket without a handle—presumably for waste. He had no tools, and Alexa was too far away for them to help each other.

He was still trying to turn the rope around his ankles, but it was slow going. The rough hemp burned his skin with every tug. Finally he got it to one side, where he could work the knot with his fingers. It was tight, but what the hell else did he have to do?

“I still don’t know why my dad picked you,” she said, puncturing the relative silence.

He glanced up. “You didn’t ask him?”

“I didn’t get a chance.”

“Maybe he thought a familiar face would be more persuasive in getting you home. Clearly, he overestimated my influence.”

“But I never told him about our…relationship.”

Is that what she was calling it? “You didn’t tell him you were bumping like bunnies with some dirt-poor enlisted guy you just met? I can’t imagine why.”

“
Dan—
”

He sighed. “Sorry.” Why couldn’t he stop being a prick? If these were their last hours together, he didn’t want to spend them at odds. “Just ignore me.” He worked out his frustrations on the tighter-than-a-lieutenant’s-asshole knot until his fingers were raw.

The tension stretched out between them, filled with nothing but the muted sounds of birds and bugs and the occasional rumble of voices from outside. He was pretty sure there was more than one man guarding them, but he couldn’t tell how many. Petitt had probably put him and Alexa together so they’d be easier to keep track of.

Definitely not so they could hash out their past relationship.

“It wasn’t like that,” she finally said.

He stifled a sigh. “Like what?” he asked, without looking up. If he kept his head down, eyes closed, he could envision the knot in his mind. For all the good it was doing.

“I didn’t break things off because of your socioeconomic status.”

Socioeconomic status? Jesus. “So what you’re saying is that it was just me.” As if his ego hadn’t taken enough of a hit from this woman.

“
No
.”

God help him. “Okay. Since you’re so hell-bent on enlightening me, then by all means. Why
did
you ‘break things off’?”

She cleared her throat. “Well, for one, because I’d lied to you.”

He did look at her then, giving her his best I’m-calling-your-bullshit expression. “A conversation could have solved that. You think I’m such a dick I wouldn’t understand your reasons? Hell, safety alone is enough. Look what’s happening now, for example.”

She stared at the floor, her brows drawn low. “You’re right. I could have told you. But I didn’t want to.” Her head came up and their eyes locked. “People treat me differently when they know the truth. I feel like I can’t be myself when they know.”

“So it was easier to end a good thing than to spill? You didn’t give me much credit,” he said.

Would he have changed toward her once he knew? Maybe. Dan was no stranger to rich girls who liked slumming it. In fact, he’d taken full advantage of the phenomenon when he bussed tables at the country club. He had also quickly learned that while sex was awesome, it sucked donkey balls to find out you were good enough for a pretty girl to fuck, but not good enough to date. Not good enough to be seen in public with, even after you’d seen everything she had to offer, up close and personal.