Desperate Domination (Bought by the Billionaire #3) (2 page)

She was poison, just like her father, just like Ian Hawke. She was a predator who had taken pleasure in other people’s pain and now she would pay for it a thousand times over. She would never know peace or an end to the crushing guilt of knowing she had killed the man she loved.

“If you don’t start walking, they’re going to find us,” Dom whispered, his fingers digging painfully into the bruised flesh at her hip. “And then we’ll both be as dead as your boyfriend.”

He was right. Someone was coming. The hairs at the back of her neck stood on end, warning that the hunter had become the hunted.

Swallowing hard, Harley forced strength back into her knees and began to put one foot in front of the other. She didn’t care if she were murdered, but Dominic didn’t deserve to die this way. He was only trying to do his job and if she’d answered his call, Clay might be alive.

Dom wasn’t to blame. She was in this mess because of her stubborn insistence that those who’d wronged her should pay for their sins a thousand times over.

A thousand times a thousand times a thousand.

In the years that followed, as fate ensured there was no way to forget the horrible things she’d done, Harley paid the price for that one terrible summer again and again. Every morning she woke with the reminder that Clay had died too soon staring her in the face, and every night she went to bed wondering if she would ever stop aching for the man she’d destroyed.

And then, one night the past caught up with her, and she learned that no matter how high a price you’ve paid, there is always something left to lose.

CHAPTER TWO

Present Day

Hannah

Faster, Hannah! Run faster. Faster!

Hitching the red chiffon of her dress up around her knees, Hannah sprinted as fast as she could down the road toward what she hoped was civilization. But her legs still ached from the six-mile hike earlier and she’d only choked down a few bites of food. She was exhausted, running on empty, and there was no way she would make it to safety before Jackson tracked her down. The jungle on the left side of the road was too thick for her to penetrate and the shoreline to the right offered little to no cover. If she stayed on the road, it wasn’t a matter of
if
Jackson would find her, but when.

Unless she found a way to escape that he wouldn’t suspect…

With a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure no tall, terrifying men had appeared on the road, Hannah darted off the gravel and across the dunes toward the beach. The sand ended a few feet from the ocean, replaced by a line of jagged black rocks that seemed to grimace at the sea, daring it to take its best shot. The tide was low, but fierce, slamming into the stones with a ferocity that made her shiver.

If she didn’t jump far enough or swim hard enough, she would be tossed back toward the shore and dashed to pieces on the rocks long before Jackson or anyone else could find her. She was a strong swimmer, but she didn’t know this stretch of shoreline. She didn’t know the tide patterns or the reef nearby or what kind of ocean life claimed this part of the island as their territory.

Back home, she knew which beaches were her best bet for observing giant sea turtles, which were good for snorkeling or boogie boarding, and which to avoid because of dangerous rip tides.

Or sharks.

There was a bay to the far north of the island where shark attacks were quadruple the number of anywhere else in the region. It was their feeding ground and anyone with sense knew to stay out of the water. Even the tourists knew, their guidebooks containing strongly worded warnings about the likelihood of shark attack and grisly stories of the people who had lost their lives in the bay over the years.

Looking out at the churning water, where sea foam frothed pink in the setting sun, Hannah couldn’t see anything beneath the water except occasional dark patches indicating coral formations. But that didn’t mean there was nothing to see and dusk was a dangerous time to swim. Sharks hunted from dusk until dawn and as soon as she hit the water, she would be prey.

You’re already prey, fool.

Hannah swallowed hard. Her inner voice was right. She was Jackson’s prey and she had no idea what he would do to her if he caught her. He might lock her in that cage she’d seen Adam carrying to the back of the house or something worse. And at least with a shark she knew how to fight back.

Sharks preferred easy prey. If you managed to get a few solid punches in to their nose and eyes, most would swim away looking for a less feisty food source. Jackson, on the other hand, would take pleasure from overpowering her while she struggled, showing her who controlled her, body and soul.

“No,” she said aloud, her hands fisting at her sides.

She was in control now and she had to stay that way. No matter how much a part of her wanted to believe that she could trust Jackson, she couldn’t gamble her life on it. She’d made the choice to run and now she had to see it through.

Without letting herself think too much about the things lurking beneath the water or the vicious crash of the waves as they pounded against the shore, Hannah toed off her sandals and unzipped her dress. The fabric fell to her feet, leaving her in nothing but her strapless bra and panties. It wasn’t a swimsuit, but it would leave her body at least partially covered so that she wouldn’t have to approach a potential rescuer buck-naked.

The cool ocean breeze whispered across her skin, raising gooseflesh on her arms and legs as she picked her way across the dark rocks, getting as far from the shore as she could without being sucked into the waves. As she reached the outer most point, just before the rocks dropped away into deeper water, she exhaled long and slow, her fingers wiggling at her sides as she waited for the perfect moment.

As soon as the next wave crashed against the shore and began its rush away, she jumped, leaping into the churning froth. The ocean closed around her, cool and shocking, but she didn’t waste time allowing her body to adjust to the water temperature before bobbing back to the surface and pulling hard toward the open sea.

She made it a good ten feet out before the next wave bore down hard upon her, trying to toss her back the way she’d come. Diving beneath the curl, she slipped beyond the reach of the strongest onshore current and turned left, swimming parallel to the shore. Thankfully, the current seemed to be on her side, drawing her south toward the other end of the island.

Ignoring her racing heart, Hannah established a rhythm with her strokes and did her best to keep her breath under control. She was used to swimming a mile or more every morning before bustling around the bed and breakfast cleaning and taking care of guests. If she kept calm and used her body efficiently, she could easily swim five miles or more and hopefully come across some sign of life along the shore.

The island was small, but surely there had to be some indigenous population. She would look for boat docks or cleared beaches and be ready to head back in toward land when she spotted them. She would find help and she would get off this island in one piece. She had to stay positive and focused or fear would swallow her whole.

Over the past week, she had convinced herself that Jackson wasn’t as frightening or cruel as she’d thought at first. She’d convinced herself that he cared and that she wasn’t in any serious danger. But the moment she’d started down the road away from the house where she’d been held captive, those pretty lies had vanished in a wave of terror.

Now, when she imagined Jackson finding her, it wasn’t the man who had touched a soft finger to her lips that she saw in her mind’s eye. It was the man who had balled his hands into fists when she’d smiled at him, the one who had promised to break her and looked like he would enjoy doing it.

Just keep swimming,
she thought, trying to talk her heart down from her throat.
Just keep swimming.

She sounded like that fish from the Disney movie, the one she’d gone to see when she was in high school even though Harley had said they were too old for cartoons. But even back then, when she was fifteen and discovering boys while learning to drive, Hannah had known she would never be too old for cartoons. She would never be too old for anything that brought her joy.

There was no reason to outgrow simple pleasures. There was no reason to shut out the things that made her happy because she was growing up. She didn’t have to be like her parents.

There was too much magic in the world to become bitter and jaded and growing up didn’t have to mean growing old. She had always believed that and secretly thought that holding on to childlike wonder would make her a better mother, the kind who understood what her children were going through because she’d never let go of the child inside of herself.

But after a week under Jackson’s control, a good deal of it spent in isolation with nothing to occupy her thoughts or distract her from taking a hard look at the state of her life, she realized she would never be a mom. She would never have a husband or children because she was going to spend the rest of her life addicted to the touch of a man who didn’t care if she lived or died.

Jackson didn’t love her—he didn’t even know her true identity—but she would crave his touch until the day they put her in the ground. He’d summoned a darkly sensual part of her to the surface and there would be no putting it back to sleep. She would always long for his firm hand and the erotic bliss of being under his control.

She might escape him today, but he would haunt her forever, no matter how far or how fast she ran.

Her thoughts were depressing to say the least, but that wasn’t why she sank lower in the water, her head dipping below the surface before she bobbed back above the waves. It was the pain that made her falter, a sharp agony knotting low in her legs.

Hannah winced, crying out as another wave of suffering flashed through her calf muscles. The cramps were so intense they soon rendered her numb from the knees down. Fighting the urge to panic, she strained harder with her arms, trying to compensate for her suddenly useless legs. All she wanted to do was stop swimming and dig her thumbs into her aching calves, but if she stopped pulling with her arms, she would drown.

While she struggled, willing her thrumming muscles to relax, a larger wave swept in, taking her by surprise. She sucked in a breath at the wrong time, taking in a mouthful of seawater as she was rolled beneath the curl. She broke the surface again in the trough, coughing up ocean, fighting to catch her breath before the next wave hit, but she barely had time to clear her lungs before she was swept under again.

Chest aching with the need for oxygen, Hannah tumbled through the dark, the muffled thunder of the churning water above her roaring in her ears. As she revolved, she became aware of a sucking sensation tugging at her torso, drawing her farther from the shore, out into the wilds of the open sea.

In some still, quiet hall inside her mind, a sober voice announced that she was caught in a rip current and would likely die before she made it back to shore. If she had the use of her legs, she might be able to fight her way free by swimming parallel to the beach until the current let her go, but without her legs this was most likely a lost cause. Chances were that she was about to drown. Her body would be lost to the ocean and her Aunt Sybil left alone in the world, with no idea what had happened to her niece.

Jackson wouldn’t know what had become of her either.

The thought shouldn’t hurt, but it did. She’d run from him tonight, but deep down she’d expected to see him again, somewhere, someday. She’d never imagined it would end this way, with her dead and him forever haunted by his unanswered questions.

The thought made her soul howl with regret. She didn’t want to go out like this. She didn’t want to lose her life in the middle of running from her problems, the way she always had. She was tired of running, tired of being afraid. She wanted to face her fears—to face Jackson—and come away a better person for proving that she was stronger than anyone gave her credit for.

She might be submissive, but she wasn’t subhuman. She didn’t deserve Jackson’s contempt or abuse. She should have stayed, told him the truth, and insisted he believe her. She should have stood up to him and shown that she could be every bit as persistent and stubborn as the man she was falling in love with.

He inspired so many conflicting feelings, but love was there, threading through the fear, a ray of light in the darkness.

But if she didn’t get back to shore, he would never know that one of the Mason twins had truly cared for him and wanted nothing more than to give him pleasure and ease his pain.

Drawing strength from her thoughts, Hannah pulled hard to the surface, managing to get in three long strokes before another wave bore down on her, forcing her beneath the water. She dove down, ears ringing and legs stinging with soreness, but she refused to let terror take over. As soon as she was able, she resurfaced and flipped over onto her back to float. If she could draw in a few easier breaths and get her racing pulse under control, she would have the strength to keep fighting.

She was in the midst of her second smooth inhalation—and silently congratulating herself on keeping her head in the midst of a crisis—when an arm wrapped around her chest, banding beneath her armpits. Surprised, she flinched, but the arm only tightened its inexorable grip around her ribs.

A moment later, Jackson’s ragged breath warmed her ear. “Lie still and let me help you. Fight me and I’ll drag you back to shore unconscious.”