Reluctantly, but unable to defy his command, she turned her head, her gaze lowered, eyes downcast as defeat settled over her. She sagged against the seat, exhausted both mentally and physically, tears burning the corners of her eyes. She inhaled sharply, calling on all her flagging reserves to pull herself together. This man would not see her cry, nor would he see her as a weak, helpless woman who’d accepted defeat.
“Evangeline, look at me,” Maddox said softly.
His hand still gripped hers but his thumb rubbed softly over her delicate skin as though to comfort her. And the really stupid, screwed-up thing about it was that it did give her a small measure of comfort. Surely if he planned to murder her, he wouldn’t be trying to offer her reassurance. She nearly groaned aloud, because again, her extreme naïveté was taking over her brain. Serial killers were often normal, average men who gained the trust of their victims before viciously ending their lives.
Knowing she was being a coward—and, well, she was a coward—she slowly lifted her eyes to meet Maddox’s intense gaze. She hated conflict and any sort of confrontation and yet here she was, on her way to the mother of all confrontations. She wanted to dig a very deep hole and bury herself in it.
“You will not come to any harm,” he said in a tone that couldn’t possibly be misunderstood as a lie. “Drake will not hurt you in any way. Nor would he ever allow anyone else to hurt you. I know you have no reason to trust me, or Drake for that matter, but I swear to you on my life that you will be safe at all times. I will escort you personally to Drake and once you are with him, no one, and I mean no one, will be able to get within a mile of you. And while he is most certainly capable of handling himself in any situation, he is surrounded at all times by a security team and they are the absolute best at what they do. They are highly trained and there isn’t a single one of us who wouldn’t give our life for Drake, and now, by proxy, you.”
She stared at him in utter bewilderment, trying to take in everything he’d just said. There were so many insane responses swirling in her head that she was dizzy from it.
“You’ll forgive my skepticism,” she said, trying to keep the tremble from her voice that betrayed her fear. No, fear was too tame a word. She feared spiders and bugs. Drake terrified her. “But he sent you to kidnap me. No amount of pretty words or explanations changes the fact that I was taken against my will. You wouldn’t take no for an answer. My absence at the seven o’clock pickup time he commanded of me should have been signal enough that I had no desire to accept his dictate. And for that matter, he never asked me to meet him. He didn’t offer me a choice. He told me to be at my apartment at seven and that someone would be there to pick me up and bring me to him. And I was so freaked out and just wanted to get as far away from that place as possible that all I did was nod, because if I told him no then, how was I supposed to know if he would have even let me leave? Now you tell me. What sane person wouldn’t be scared out of her mind? And what sane person would blithely accept the assurances of a man who looks like he could break me in half with nothing more than a look that I won’t be harmed and I’ll be safe? What about this entire freaky four-in-the-morning stalkfest would convince any woman that she’s safe or that the man who gave the order for her to be kidnapped doesn’t plan to hurt her?”
Maddox’s face softened, remorse reflected in his eyes, surprising her with how much it transformed his appearance from a man not to be fucked with ever to someone who actually possessed a conscience. He seemed to truly regret that he’d frightened and intimidated her, as if that had never been his intention and he was appalled that she’d perceived his actions that way.
Not to say that he was still not an extremely alpha badass man who could probably mow down an entire crowd of men without suffering a single injury. But then all the men at Impulse, even the freaking bartender, looked like they were former special forces. Or navy SEALs or some equally ferocious military unit she’d never heard of. Where on earth had Drake found a veritable army of men who were built like concrete buildings? She’d be willing to bet that bullets bounced right off them and that even a grenade wouldn’t slow them down. Much.