“Come on, Mia. Let’s not waste time playing games. Why’d you fake your own abduction?”
“Fake my own…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your boyfriend’s upset.”
Douglas. Yes. She’d be surprised if he wasn’t.
“He thought something had happened to you and all the time, what happened was that you decided to run out on him. The only question now is, where is it?”
Her heart bumped into her throat. She forced herself not to react with any kind of body language.
“Mia. Playing dumb isn’t going to help. I asked you a question. Where is it?”
“I’m not playing anything. I don’t understand the question.” Carefully, not wanting to do anything that might make him come at her again, she sat a little straighter.
“It’ll go easier if you tell me.”
Easier? She almost laughed. Once he got the list from her, her usefulness to him would be over.
“I told you,” she said carefully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He stepped away from the window and came toward her. God, he was so big! Six-
three, six-four. And she was down here, huddled on the floor. She had to even the odds, at least psychologically. Passive was one thing. Submissive was another.
Slowly, her eyes locked to his still-shadowy figure, she rose to her feet.
“I have to get dressed.”
His gaze flickered over her, lingering on the thrust of her breasts. She decided to sound a little more assertive.
“Did you hear me? I want to get dressed. I’m cold.”
“This is Colombia. We’re practically sitting on the equator. It’s never cold here.”
There was no point in telling him he was wrong. She had the feeling he knew it, that he was trying to bait her. Instead she drew the edges of the robe together.
“I just took a shower. The water was cold and the towels were thin, and I’m—”
“Wet,” he said.
His voice had changed. Gone lower. Rougher. Her breath caught. Mentioning the shower had been a bad idea. She could tell by the way he sounded, the way his gaze moved over her.
She glanced down, saw the clear thrust of her nipples beneath the robe. Fear skittered down her spine. She had to defuse things. Personalize the enemy. Wasn’t that one of the things you were supposed to do? Her training had been brutally short, but she’d learned some things, at least.
“You didn’t…you didn’t tell me your name.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. It matters.” Forget submissive. Forget passive. You met force with force, just as she had when he’d jumped her. Mia tossed back her wet hair. “You break into my room, go through my things, accuse me of—of who knows what—”
“And you,” he said softly, “don’t even ask why. Interesting, don’t you think?”
She could see him clearly now. He was lean. Hard-bodied. His shoulders, encased in a navy cotton T-shirt, were broad. His belly was washboard-flat. His hips were narrow, his legs long in the confines of softly faded jeans.
He had the kind of body that graced ads for high-powered, expensive cars.
Her eyes lifted to his face. It was hard not to react. She’d expected a monster. Instead she saw masculine beauty. Thick black hair. Deep green eyes. A long, elegant blade of a nose. A chiseled mouth, a lightly clefted chin.