Tied Up With Love: A feel-good, romantic comedy to make you smile. Holly Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ the van, then turned round and in an easy movement lifted her carefully back over his shoulder again.

      She had never been as scared in her life as she was right then. She had read about this sort of thing in the papers, but never thought for one moment it would ever happen to her.

      They were quickly inside and she had a chance to see dark wood flooring before Gizmo was carrying her down some stone stairs. He walked into a dimly lit room and laid her on the bed. Black Boots knelt on the bed next to her and lifted her arms above her head to tie them to the headboard.

      Something snapped inside of her, there was no way she was going to let this happen. She lashed out with her feet, kicking Gizmo in the side of the face. He leapt back with a wail, she elbowed Black Boots in the nose and blood spurted from it satisfyingly. She leapt up and ran but only managed to get two feet before Gizmo had grabbed her and dragged her, kicking and wriggling back to the bed. Black Boots quickly held her feet down while Gizmo tied her hands proficiently to the headboard.

      ‘Jesus,’ Gizmo rubbed his head. ‘Anyone would think she doesn’t want to get shagged.’

      Black Boots touched his nose. ‘This is exactly why she should have been told. I don’t get paid enough for this.’

      Izzy wriggled against her restraints, pulling on the rope so hard it made her wrists sore.

      ‘Good luck to her husband, that’s all I can say, she’s going to skin him alive,’ Gizmo said.

      There were footsteps on the stairs and Black Boots looked towards them. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell her? That’s part of our agreement. She’s petrified.’

      ‘I did,’ said a voice, veiled in the darkness.

      Izzy strained her eyes to look at her kidnapper and slowly he emerged into the light. A thin, scrawny looking man with glasses peered at her.

      ‘Who the hell is that?’

      ‘Your wife,’ Gizmo said.

      ‘No she bloody isn’t.’

      Black Boots looked back at her, his tanned cheeks suddenly going pale. ‘That’s not your wife?’

      Scrawny Man shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen her before in my life.’

      They all stared at her. Maybe there was some little ray of hope. They’d clearly kidnapped the wrong person and now she would be set free.

      ‘Hang on a minute,’ Scrawny Man said. ‘If she’s here, who the hell has got my wife?’

      ‘No one, there are no other teams. Your wife is probably still standing at the pick-up point. Or gone home, bored of waiting.’

      ‘Bloody hell, I’ve paid four hundred pounds for this and you can’t even pick up the right woman. I bought Viagra and everything.’

      ‘Look, Ethan will be in touch with you. We’ll arrange a full refund or an alternative date but right now we have the very small matter of abducting a complete stranger off the street to deal with.’ Black Boots gestured to Izzy in exasperation and Scrawny Man nodded.

      ‘Right, of course. If the press get hold of this I want full anonymity.’

      ‘The press won’t get hold of this – besides, you’re not actually doing anything wrong.’

      Scrawny Man nodded again. ‘I better call my wife.’

      Izzy watched as he retreated back up the stairs. Gizmo and Black Boots continued to stare at her.

      ‘What are we going to do now?’ Gizmo asked.

      ‘I can’t believe you grabbed the wrong woman.’

      ‘Me? You told me it was her.’

      ‘The boss is going to kill us,’ Black Boots said.

      ‘We could not tell him.’

      ‘How do you suppose that’s going to work? We let her go now, she’ll go straight to the police. The police will come straight to Ethan with your description, you’re hardly inconspicuous.’

      Gizmo paled. ‘I’m not going back to jail, no way.’

      Izzy moaned against her gag and Black Boots approached her like she was a caged wild animal.

      Carefully he removed the bandana from her mouth.

      ‘Please, let me go. There’s obviously been some terrible mistake. I promise, I won’t go to the police. I won’t tell anyone.’

      Black Boots looked back at Gizmo. Gizmo shook his head, ‘She’s seen our faces. There’s no way I’m letting her go.’

      ‘Are you insane? We’re not criminals. What are you going to do with her, kill her and dump her body where no one will ever find her?’

      Izzy’s heart, which had been slowing when she realised she wasn’t the intended target, started galloping again.

      ‘Please. Please don’t hurt me.’

      ‘We’re not going to hurt you.’ Black Boots leaned over to untie her from the headboard. But as she sat up Gizmo marched over and pulled the bag back over her head.

      ‘What are you doing?’ Black Boots said.

      ‘We’ll take her to the boss, he’ll know what to do.’

      ‘Jesus, Gizmo, we’re just making this situation worse.’

      But Gizmo, it seemed, wasn’t to be talked out of this. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder again. She saw the stone steps and then the gravel outside, and she was back inside the darkness of the van a moment later.

       Chapter Two

      The van journey was quite short but Gizmo and Black Boots were silent.

      They surely weren’t going to kill her.

      But she had seen their faces, she knew the van’s number plate off by heart. Why would they let her go?

      How had it come to this? Her day had started so normally. Since being fired from her job two weeks before, she hadn’t had to get up too early, but her beloved cat Pete had woken her up demanding to be fed. She’d studiously ignored the first trickle of bills that had arrived on her doorstep. There were bound to be many more to come. She’d fed the cat, fed herself the remains of the cereal, gone for a run and spent three hours applying for different jobs. Bar maid, waitress, secretary, cleaner, bin man – or in her case, bin lady – sports coach, carpenter and driver’s mate, she’d applied for them all. She came across well on the phone, she had good experience and was never sick. She worked hard and most people seemed interested until they asked the fateful question. ‘Why did you leave your last job?’ Being fired for breaking her boss’s nose was not a selling point. Most people rapidly lost interest after that.

      She’d wandered down to the СКАЧАТЬ