“Try to get this straight,” he said coldly. “I ask the questions. You give the answers. That’s it.”
“I have the right to know your na—”
She cried out as he clasped her shoulders and pulled her to him.
“You have no rights, baby. The only thing you need to know is that I’m going to find out why you ran. What you stole. Where you’re go—”
His cell phone rang.
The sound surprised him. His brothers knew he was out of the country; they’d be unlikely to call him, and few other people had the number.
He let go of Mia. She shrank back against the seat as he took the phone from his pocket and flipped open the cover.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Knight.”
It was the colonel. How will I get in touch with you? he’d said, and Matthew had rattled off the cell number.
“Yes?”
“I was hoping you’d made progress in your search for my fiancée.”
Matthew looked at Mia. Her eyes glittered as much with defiance as with fear.
One word to Hamilton, and this would be over. He didn’t even have to return to Cartagena. The colonel could easily arrange to have someone meet him here to pick her up.
“Mr. Knight? Do we have a bad connection? I asked if you’d made progress.”
“I heard you, Colonel.”
“Well, have you? Have you found Mia yet?”
Matthew looked at the woman beside him again.
“No,” he said calmly, “I haven’t.”
He closed the phone, tucked it back into his pocket and started the Escalade’s engine. Then, in what was perhaps the most illogical act of his life, he leaned across the console and took her mouth in a quick, hard kiss.
Moments later, the inn and the town were far behind them, lost in a cloud of leaves and dust.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MAN sent to find her drove like a madman.
But then, why wouldn’t he? Weren’t killers nutcases by definition? And that’s what he was. A killer. “Finding” her was just a sorry attempt to hide from the truth.
Mia risked a glance at him.
She’d met killers before. There’d been men who’d come to Hamilton’s villa late at night. None had come right out and said, “Hello, I’m on the cartel’s payroll as a hired gun,” but she knew what they were.
Most of them looked as if taking a life would be no more trouble than swatting a fly.
Not her captor.
He was good-looking. Actually, that was an understatement. He was heart-stoppingly beautiful and yet completely masculine. He reminded her of the statue of David she’d seen on that trip to Florence, her senior year in college…
Or of a big, exotic cat.