Captive At Her Enemy's Command. Heidi Rice
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had changed this morning when Dario’s call had come in from New York, interrupting him in Naples during a meeting where he’d been finalizing the takeover of a small tech-security firm.
The urgency in Dario’s voice had hit first, then the wave of shame at the mention of a girl he had tried very hard to forget in the last five years.
When he’d discovered that Katherine was missing on the Amalfi Coast somewhere, that her sister Megan was freaking out big time and that they hadn’t been able to contract her, Jared hadn’t hesitated.
He’d redirected a team of his men from the Venus project to kick-start the search, and then taken a helicopter to Sorrento.
He tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. He still didn’t know where that impulse had come from. Probably just his loyalty to Dario. It was true he’d never quite been able to forget Katherine Whittaker—and the desolation in her eyes after that aborted kiss—but he never got sentimental about women. Especially not women as troublesome as this one.
“How did you end up lost in Campania barefoot?” he asked, attempting to defuse the situation and get some answers. Although he suspected he already knew what had happened.
The Amalfi Coast was a mecca for billionaire property development and high-end tourism but, when you factored in the deprivation in Naples’ slums less than thirty miles away, opportunistic robberies weren’t uncommon.
“I’m not lost,” she said, snapping his olive branch in two. “I know where I am. And where I want to go. And it’s not back to New York.”
Yeah, it was. But he’d deal with the problem of getting her on a plane once they got to the airport. First he needed to swing by wherever she was staying so she could wash up and they could grab her luggage and travel documents.
Once she was on her way home, he’d follow up with the police on the investigation. Even if she hadn’t been hurt, he wanted the little bastards who had done this to her caught and prosecuted.
“So, where were you headed with no transport and no shoes?”
“Sorrento. If you could drop me there, that would be terrific. Then you can tell Dario you’ve done your bit.”
“Is that where you’re based? In Sorrento?” he asked.
She cleared her throat. “Not exactly.”
He glanced at her. The rosé blush was heading for her hairline at an alarming rate.
“Then where’s the rest of your stuff?” he demanded.
“Probably half way to France by now on the back of my stolen Vespa, with my shoes.”
Jared’s fingers clenched on the wheel hard enough to leave an indent in the leather. “Please tell me that doesn’t include your passport,” he said.
The glare she sent him gave him the answer he didn’t want.
THE LAST OF the sunshine glinted off the convertible’s paintwork as it powered down the winding coast road and cast shadows over Jared Caine’s face, making him look even more forbidding than usual. The short, dark strands of his hair danced playfully in the breeze but did nothing to soften the line of his jaw—which he was clenching hard enough to crack a tooth.
His eyes were hidden behind the dark lenses of his designer sunglasses, but Katie didn’t need to look into them to know Jared Caine was angry about the latest turn of events and trying hard not to show it.
Join the club.
She looked back toward the horizon and slipped down in the seat until the car’s luxury leather upholstery cradled her. She closed her eyes, letting the well-oiled hum of the convertible’s engine drown out the deep hum in her abdomen—which had kicked off the minute Caine had stepped out of his car—and was not remotely significant.
Caine was a phenomenally good-looking guy—with a potent sexual charisma. Especially if you had a weakness for tough, take-charge, control-freaky types who demonstrated about as much empathy and sensitivity as the jagged rocks of Campania’s coastline. And apparently she did, especially when she was exhausted and traumatized and had just been mugged.
Luckily, she had previous experience of this reaction. She would get over it.
And at least he’d stopped trying to bully her into getting on a plane. She might have been able to get some grim satisfaction out of thwarting his plan but for the painful throbbing in her frontal lobe as she tried to get her head around the huge mess she was in.
The car phone buzzed loudly, making her head hurt even more.
“Hey, Dario,” Caine said, answering the call and then switching to speaker phone.
“Tell me you’ve found her, Jared?”
Katie’s heart somersaulted in her chest at the urgency in her brother-in-law’s voice and she straightened in her seat.
“I’ve got her here with me,” Caine replied. “Picked her up on a farm track five miles from Sorrento. We’re on speaker.”
Dario cursed in Italian. “Katie? Grazie Dio,” he murmured. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m good, Dario. Really, it wasn’t anything major. I got robbed, but they didn’t hurt me. I didn’t want you and Meg to worry.”
“Is she okay, Jared?” Dario asked, even though she’d already answered that question.
Caine’s all-seeing gaze swept over her, assessing her condition again, the way he had when he’d first stepped out of his car. And the hum went haywire.
She pressed her hand to her head, mindful of the graze hiding behind her hair which she didn’t want either Caine or Dario to know about, because it would just give the two of them more excuses to treat her like a five-year-old.
“Other than sore feet, yes,” he said after the disturbingly thorough examination. “Just shaken up.”
“I’m sitting right here, Dario,” she pointed out, trying not to lose her cool, while being reminded of being nineteen years old again and having both Dario and Caine decide that they knew what was best for her.
The spurt of indignation died though when she heard Megan’s muffled voice and then her sister came on the line. “Katie, thank God you’re okay. I’ve been worried sick ever since we got your text and I couldn’t get through to you.”
Guilt swept through Katie at the distressed tone.
“The phone lost service right after I texted you,” Katie said, regretting sending the panicked plea in the moments after the robbery even more. Megan would have been frantic and it was all her fault, as usual. “Really, Megan, I’m fine,” she repeated. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Where are you now?” her sister asked.
“With Caine, in his car.”
Hopefully heading for Sorrento.
“We can wire you some money. How much do you need?” Megan cut back in.
Katie wanted desperately to refuse the offer, especially with Caine listening in. He’d once called her a spoiled brat and in her debilitated state the old insult felt fresh.
“Two hundred euros would be terrific,” she said. It would be just enough to stay in a hostel for a couple of nights, contact her insurance company to replenish her wardrobe and get painting. Once she’d done a few watercolors she could set up a pitch in Piazza Tasso. Sorrento’s main square was the perfect place for her to sell her work, with its arty vibe and the never-ending stream of tourists. “I’ll pay you back as soon as I—”
“Don’t be silly. That’s not enough. Let us wire you five thousand.” Megan interrupted