The Hostage Bride (2 page)

‘I said, just a minute!'

She was twisting in her seat, looking back to the house, watching it recede as the car picked up speed.

‘Did you hear me? We can't leave yet—my father…'

The words died on her lips as the full realisation of what he had said hit home like a blow to her heart.

Mission accomplished. You can stop now.

Leaning forward, she banged hard on the glass panel that separated her from the driver.

‘What are you doing? Where are we going? You can't…'

He ignored her. Thumbing off the mobile, he dropped it back into his pocket and put his hand on the steering wheel instead. With a faint roar of the engine he changed up a gear, pressed his foot on the accelerator.

‘You have to stop! My father…'

Some tiny movement of his eyes, a swift glance in the rear-view mirror, alerted her. Twisting once more in her seat, she could only watch in despair as behind her she saw her father, alerted by the sound of the engine, running to the door of the house. Coming to an abrupt halt he could only stand and stare after them, shock, disbelief and total bemusement in every line of his body.

But already they were too far away for her to read his face. She saw him raise an arm, gesticulating wildly, knew that he had opened his mouth to shout but his cries were inaudible.

And then she knew. Realised just what had happened. The phone call that had distracted her father as they had
left the house had been deliberately planned. It had been organised by this man to coincide exactly with their appearance, to keep her father occupied just long enough to get her into the car…

Dad!

The word formed in her brain but she was too shocked, too stunned to be able to voice it. Instead she could only watch in despair as the car accelerated again, the distance between them increasing even more. Then with one last twist of the wheel they rounded a bend in the drive and the house and her father disappeared from sight.

She was on her own, she realised fearfully. Completely on her own with this unnerving, frightening stranger.

And it was when they turned left at the bottom of the drive, in the opposite direction to the way they should have headed for the church and her wedding that she really began to worry.

‘J
UST
what do you think you're doing?'

Giving into panic was quite the wrong approach, Felicity told herself. Okay, so she had been badly thrown for a minute there, but really there was no need for that. This wasn't the nightmare it seemed. No, there was simply some mistake, that was all.

‘I said… Oh, can't you just slow down a bit?'

Had he even heard her? The solid, square set of his back seemed impervious as a brick wall and, with his face turned firmly in the direction they were travelling, his eyes on the road ahead, there was no way she could even read his expression or judge if she was getting through to him.

‘You're going the wrong way!'

No response. Not even a flicker of a glance in her direction, not a turn of his head. If anything, his grip seemed to tighten on the steering wheel and the car engine roared again as the speedometer needle crept up.

Scrabbling frantically, Felicity managed to inch the glass panel open just a little bit and lean forward with her face close against it, her mouth in the open space.

‘I said, you're going the wrong way.'

She tried to make the words sound as clear and definite as possible. After all, she was forgetting that he wasn't English—what was he? Spanish? Perhaps he just didn't understand what she was saying. Perhaps the few sentences he had spoken had been the full extent of his English, for all that they had been spoken with such apparent ease.

‘Listen to me! You're…'

Frantically she scrabbled about in her memory for the
scattered remnants of the minimal Spanish she had picked up during a holiday there a couple of years ago.

‘V-vaya—el camino malo,'
she managed, knowing it was far from grammatically correct but at least it expressed what she
meant
.

Unbelievably, that beautifully shaped mouth twitched, twisting into a faint smile of mockery at her stumbling attempt at translation.

‘Voy el camino correcto,'
he shot back at her. Then, confounding her foolish belief that he hadn't understood a word she had been saying, he added sardonically, ‘I am on precisely the
right
road. It's just not the direction you expected to be travelling in today.'

And while she was still gaping in stunned disbelief he added curtly, ‘But wherever we're going, if you're sensible you'll sit back and fasten your safety belt. Right now the way that you're behaving is not only dangerous, it's against the law and—'

‘Against the law?'

Felicity couldn't believe what she was hearing.

‘Against the law? You—you're—
abducting me
—and you're worried about breaking the law on
seat belts
? Why, you…!'

With a desperate effort she managed to push the dividing window open just a little bit more and get her hand through, banging her fingers down hard on his shoulder.

‘Stop this car at once! Stop it, I say!'

When he made no response but simply focused his dark-eyed gaze on the road ahead, she resorted to the only thing she could think of to get his attention. Driven past caring for her own safety, she reached up and caught hold of a strand of jet black hair that she could see underneath the uniform cap and pulled hard.

‘Madre de Dios!'

For one frantic, terrifying moment the car swerved vio
lently but a second later he had both himself and the powerful vehicle back under control.

‘Stop that!' he snarled through gritted teeth. ‘Don't be so damn stupid, woman! Do you want to kill us both?'

‘Where you're concerned, don't tempt me,' Felicity muttered but already she was having second—and third—thoughts about the wisdom of her actions. The wild movement of the car had thrown her to one side, bruising her arm, and the few seconds of sheer panic she had felt at just the thought of what might have happened if there had been any other traffic on the road was enough to have her hastily rethinking.

She sank back onto her seat, struggling to appear outwardly calm while inside her thoughts were whirling frantically, trying to come up with some possible explanation for what was happening.

Had the chauffeur gone completely mad? What could he possibly hope for as a result of his actions?

‘Look—you…' she tried again, struggling to force her voice to sound firm and full of a confidence she was far from feeling.

Those dark eyes flicked up swiftly, meeting hers in the rear-view mirror and holding her gaze for the space of a heartbeat before returning to their concentration on the road.

‘My name is Rico,' he said unexpectedly.

Rico? She'd be a fool to believe that—because he'd be all sorts of an idiot to give her his real name. And one thing she didn't believe that this Rico was, was a fool. There was too much intelligence in that face, too much natural cunning in the black coffee-coloured gaze he turned on her to merit any such description.

But Rico suited him. It was a rogue's name, an outlaw's name. She could just imagine him playing the role of a brigand or a bandit in some wild adventure film.

But this was no film; nor was it, in her opinion at least, any sort of an adventure.

‘Then—Rico—I think you've got this all wrong. You've made a terrible mistake.'

‘No mistake.'

The flat comment was accompanied by a brusque shake of his head.

‘I know exactly what I'm doing.'

‘But—I think you must have the wrong person.' It was the only explanation she could come up with.

‘You're not Felicity Hamilton?'

His sarcasm scraped brutally on already raw nerves.

‘Well, yes, I said I was—but you've still got it wrong. I—I'm not rich, you know, and nor is my father.' She wouldn't have been forced into marrying Edward if that had been the case.

‘I'm not interested in money.'

‘But then—why…?'

Her voice failed completely, drying to a painful croak as she thought of the only other possible reason there might be for this man to abduct her in this way. Nightmare thoughts filled her head so that she could almost feel the colour leaching from her cheeks, her heart clenching in panic.

‘Stop this car! Stop it at once!'

She had no hope that he would obey her but still it twisted every nerve to see how determinedly he ignored her, the total lack of response he made.

‘I said,
stop
!'

But even as she spoke a sudden hope flared. They were approaching a particularly tricky bend. The car would have to slow down to manoeuvre round it. If she could just get the door open… Carefully she edged forward, inching her fingers onto the handle.

‘It's locked.'

The words scythed through her hopes in an instant, cutting them off completely. Once more her gaze went to the mirror, meeting that knowing look with a sense of appalled horror.

‘Central locking,' he supplied helpfully.

With a gesture he indicated a button on the door at his side.

‘You can't get out until I let you out.'

It was foolish she knew but just for a second she ignored him. She had to. She couldn't just give in without a fight.

But no matter how hard she tugged and twisted, the door handle remained stubbornly unmoveable and at last she had to abandon the futile struggle and sit back again.

‘You might as well give up and make it easy on yourself.'

Disturbingly, his voice sounded almost gentle, and he had actually managed to inject into it a faint note of concern—one that she had no doubt at all was in no way sincere.

‘We have a long journey ahead of us and you'll only cause yourself more distress if you keep this up.'

‘A long journey? Where are we going?'

But her attempt to sound artless and innocent didn't slip past his defences as she had hoped. Instead it earned her another of those slanting glances, half sardonically amused, half reproachful of the fact that she might think he would believe her.

‘You'll find out when we get there,' he tossed over his shoulder. ‘So why don't you sit back and enjoy the ride?'

‘Enjoying myself is the furthest thing from my mind!'

‘Well, yes…'

He moved his broad shoulders in a shrug that revealed his total indifference to her retort.

‘But you'll be a lot more comfortable—and safer—if you sit back, fasten your seatbelt and try to relax.'

He was negotiating a roundabout as he spoke and, reading the road signs, Felicity saw that they were heading for the motorway that led away from her hometown and directly to London.

‘You're taking a risk, aren't you?' she said sharply. ‘I can read—and I can see where we're heading.'

Another indifferent shrug was his only response. Was he really so confident that he didn't care if she guessed at the route he was taking?

‘Doesn't that worry you?'

‘Should it?' he drawled and, as if to emphasise how little he cared, he finally pulled off the peaked chauffeur's cap and tossed it onto the seat beside him, raking one tanned hand through the sleek darkness of the hair he had revealed. Then glancing up into the mirror again, he grinned widely and wickedly just once, straight into her watchful grey eyes.

Felicity's heart kicked wildly, banging hard against her ribs and she bit down sharply on her lower lip, trying to hold back the cry of shock that almost escaped her.

It wasn't right. It wasn't
fair
! A man like this Rico—a man who had abducted her for who knew what reasons, who had invaded her life and turned it upside down—should at least look on the outside in some way that revealed the darkness of his inner heart. But in his case it was quite the opposite.

She could only see just one small part of his face reflected in the mirror but even like that, foreshortened and distorted, he had the sort of potent good looks that hit home like a punch right in her stomach.

The smooth olive skin, dark eyes and shining jet black silk of his hair all combined with strongly carved cheekbones, impossibly lush curling eyelashes and that sweetly sensual mouth to create the most forceful blueprint of purely masculine beauty she had ever seen.

She couldn't drag her eyes away but stared, transfixed,
until Rico glanced in her direction once more and caught her stunned gaze. Ashamed at being caught watching him, she looked away sharply, staring down at her hands in pained embarrassment.

‘You really should fasten that seatbelt.' This time his tone made it plain that she'd do better to obey. ‘We'll be hitting the motorway traffic soon and, while you might be prepared to put your life on the line by flouting the law, I would prefer that you were sensible.'

I would prefer that you were sensible.
Did that mean that whatever his plans for her were they didn't include actually harming her? She couldn't tell…but rather than risk any further argument she reached for the seatbelt as instructed and pushed it firmly into the holder, relieved to find that her hands were as steady as she could have wished, betraying nothing of her inner turmoil.

‘Rico what?' she asked as he turned the car onto the feed road to the motorway, the powerful vehicle increasing speed effortlessly at the slightest touch on the accelerator. ‘I take it you do have a surname?'

‘Just Rico will do.' His attention was on the road as he indicated, steered skilfully out into the traffic.

‘I can find out, you know. Edward will tell me.'

A sign on the side of the road flashed past as she spoke, barely giving her time to register what was written on it. But, as realisation dawned, sudden inspiration struck, giving her an idea.

‘In fact, I'm surprised you ever thought you'd get away with this,' she went on, talking to fill the silence, to distract him while she thought back over the scheme that had just occurred to her, considering her options, trying to decide if it would work. ‘You must know I'd report you. That I'd tell Mr Venables.'

She didn't even know if he'd heard her. Not by so much as a blink of an eyelid did he betray any reaction but re
mained as silent and stony faced as a statue carved from marble.

‘Even if this is just some sort of practical joke, he won't stand for this behaviour in one of his employees. You'll lose your job.'

Something gave him away that time. Some small, sideways slanting look, a flicker of those unbelievable eyelashes. Suddenly the truth dawned on her with an appalling sinking feeling deep in her stomach as if she had just swallowed a heavy, leaden weight.

‘It isn't a job, is it?' she asked hollowly. ‘I mean, not
your
job. You don't work for Edward Venables, do you?'

‘I'd sooner crawl down this motorway on my hands and knees,' Rico declared and the brutal vehemence of his tone left her in no doubt that he meant what he said. A cold shiver slithered down her spine at the realisation that what lay behind that forceful declaration was a powerful antipathy that she would have to describe as nothing less than hatred.

‘So this is about Edward, not me?'

And not, it seemed, about her father. Which was a relief because, after all the trouble Joe Hamilton had got himself into lately, at least he hadn't got himself entangled with this brigand of a man.

‘Does that mean you're not going to…?'

She couldn't complete the sentence as another realisation rushed into her head, erasing her earlier train of thought.

‘I have no intention of hurting you, if that's what you mean,' Rico put in, misunderstanding the reasons for her silence.

No, but he could ruin her life just as easily without even touching her, Felicity reflected unhappily. If she didn't turn up at the cathedral or at the very least let Edward know that it wasn't through her own choice that she wasn't there, he would wreak his vengeance on her father. Joe's crimes
would be exposed, and she would have put herself through all this for nothing.