The Hostage Bride. Kate Walker

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СКАЧАТЬ growled ungraciously, furious at having been caught out so easily. ‘And I have no intention of drinking anything you’ve provided.’

      ‘Then you’ll have to stay thirsty,’ Rico returned with cool callousness. ‘I told you I had no intention of harming you.’

      ‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’

      Perversely, her pretence of being thirsty had now become a fact. The sun was beating down on the car and she was uncomfortably aware of the way that for most of the morning her tightly knotted nerves had prevented her from eating or drinking anything but the barest minimum. Just the thought of the cooled water was a temptation she found hard to resist.

      ‘You could have laced it with anything!’

      His sigh was a masterpiece of resigned patience, threaded through with exasperation.

      ‘I give you my word—’

      ‘The word of a kidnapper? A brute—a thug?’

      In the mirror she saw him roll his eyes, just for a second.

      ‘How about if I drank some of it myself?’

      It was tempting. She really was very thirsty.

      He must have seen the doubt in her face, how close she was to weakening, because suddenly he flicked the indicator and moved onto the hard shoulder, slowing the car briefly.

      ‘Give me the water.’

      She could use the bottle as a weapon, Felicity told herself as she opened the bar. She could hit this Rico on the head with it—or shake it hard until the sparkling water was fizzing so wildly that it would explode in his face as soon as he opened it.

      But even as the thoughts crossed her mind, she reconsidered them hastily. If she disabled Rico, however briefly, he was still that side of the glass partition and she on the other. The control for the central locking was on his side, and she very much doubted that, even if she opened it to its fullest, she could squeeze through the gap into the front of the car.

      And she didn’t dare risk the possible repercussions if she angered him without incapacitating him. He might have given his word not to harm her, but that didn’t mean she was prepared to risk pushing him too far.

      ‘The water, Felicity.’

      Rico had swivelled round in his seat so that he was facing her and a dark strand of warning threaded through his tone.

      ‘Did I say you could use my Christian name?’ Felicity demanded, knowing she was only being petty, using the complaint as something to hide behind, to disguise the frustration she felt at not being able to get at him in any other way.

      ‘Señorita Hamilton,’ Rico amended with an elaborate courtesy that only aggravated her already bad mood.

      ‘Oh, here, take your damn water!’

      She thrust the bottle at him ungraciously, trying to avoid the mockery in his dark eyes as she did so.

      But not looking into his eyes meant she had to look somewhere and she was horrified by the way that, in spite of her struggle against it, her downbent gaze would keep sliding to the long, tanned line of his throat above the immaculate white collar of his shirt. The movement of his muscles as he tipped back his head, swallowing deeply, held her transfixed and she couldn’t force herself to look away no matter how she tried.

      A heat that had nothing to do with the sun outside dried her mouth and throat until they felt like parched sand, her whole body in the grip of a fire that would take so much more than some sips of water to extinguish.

      Stop it! she told herself furiously, forcing her eyes shut and screwing them tight. She had to stop thinking this way.

      ‘Here.’

      Rico held the bottle out to her again and she almost snatched it from him. But the realisation of the way that he was observing her, made her pause again and wipe the top of the bottle with over-elaborate care that brought a scowl to his dark face.

      Without thinking she gulped down all that was left in the bottle, grateful for the way that it eased the painful dryness that was tormenting her. And as she drank Rico put the car back into gear and rejoined the motorway smoothly, glancing back at her briefly as she sighed her relief.

      ‘Better?’

      ‘Much better, thank you.’

      It was amazing how much difference just a drink could make. She felt completely refreshed, much more relaxed. The few moments’ pause had given her time to collect herself, gather her thoughts. In fact if she could just work out where they were heading, maybe she could outsmart this man yet.

      Buoyed up by the feeling of exhilaration, she lounged back in her seat, concentrating on looking relaxed in the hope of distracting him, making him think she had switched off. Certainly, the terrible feeling of gripping panic seemed to have ebbed just a bit.

      ‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’ she asked airily. ‘I guess you’ve never done it before.’

      ‘And you, I take it, are an expert,’ Rico returned dryly, indicating again and moving out into the overtaking lane.

      ‘Oh, you don’t have to be an expert to know you’ve made a couple of basic mistakes. For one…’

      She held up her left hand, checking the points off on her fingers as she made them.

      ‘You’ve let me find out too much—your name, for example. If in fact that is your real name.’

      ‘Perhaps I wanted you to know exactly who I am.’

      That was something that hadn’t even crossed Felicity’s mind but now that it had, she was forced to consider it, to wonder just why he might want her to know who he was. It didn’t seem at all logical.

      ‘And you’ve let me see your face,’ she ticked off another point, trying not to let him see how much he had confused her.

      ‘What did you expect? That I would wear a mask and sweep you off your feet and carry you away over my shoulder? I would think that your so efficient British police might just have noticed if that had happened.’

      That, Felicity had to concede, was distinctly possible. What she was having trouble with was the disturbing images flooding into her mind at the thought of being swept off her feet and into Rico’s arms. A swift, shivering glance at the strong, tanned fingers steering the powerful car with skilful ease made her shudder in uncontrollable response. Her body seemed to be growing soft and unexpectedly pliant, lolling against the soft leather almost as if she was melting in the wanton heat of her thoughts.

      ‘So what else have you decided I’ve done wrong?’ Rico asked. ‘What other mistakes have I made?’

      Apart from the most obvious one of finding the woman he had kidnapped—a woman who was promised to someone else—shockingly attractive? he asked himself. If he had known that she was the Felicity Hamilton he had to hold hostage, wouldn’t he have had severe second thoughts about this whole thing?

      ‘When I think of more, I’ll let you know.’

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