Leaning against the door, I try to figure out how much danger I’m in by being here now. I can’t be here, I decide. With a plan in my mind, I hurry to the desk, slide on my sneakers, load my briefcase, grab my purse, and head for the door. Slipping into the hallway, I quietly hurry past Gabriel’s office area and down the stairs to make my way to the kitchen.
Bianca is standing behind the giant gray stone island of the magnificent chef’s kitchen when I enter. “I’m starving,” I announce. “Is there anything to eat by chance?”
Her eyes light predictably, as I’ve learned this past year that she loves to feed everyone. “You sit.” She motions to a stool on the other side of the island. “I’ll take care of you and your belly right away. You’re too thin as it is.”
I do as she orders, and soon, I have coffee and sugar cookies in front of me, which I force myself to nibble on, despite the churn of my stomach. I’m on cookie number three and coffee refill number two and Gabriel has yet to show himself. Apparently, he’s still buried inside his campaign manager while plotting a way to bury my father.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Candace
“I’m going to just sit at the table and get some work done,” I say, and Bianca quickly helps me settle next to the window. “Oh no,” I say. “I left my sketchpad in the office.”
“I’ll grab it for you,” Bianca offers and soon she’s gone to grab it, and I’m alone.
I quickly draw a deep breath and try to calm my nerves, managing to bring myself down about five notches. I have to figure out how to get out of this. How to survive it. How to make sure my father survives it. I have to fight for him while he’s off fighting for our country. I just pray nothing in those messages means he’s not coming back. I press my hands to my face. God. Please no.
“You okay, honey?”
At Bianca’s voice, I glance up. “Yes. Of course. A bit of a headache is all.”
“I’ll get you some medicine right now,” she says, setting my sketchpad down on the table.
“Thank you,” I say, and a few minutes later, fresh coffee, Advil, and another cookie later, I’m alone again, pretending to sketch because I know every common room in this place has cameras. Exactly why I can’t bury my face in my hands again. That might give away how aware I am of a problem I’m not supposed to perceive. Still, I randomly check the photos I’ve taken at Gabriel’s secretary’s desk, but nothing jumps out at me as relevant to Gabriel’s intent to hurt my father. And he does intend to hurt my father.
My phone buzzes with a text and I grab it to read: I don’t know how I’m going to watch that man touch you tonight and not kill him.
I swallow hard and squeeze my eyes shut. I’m vulnerable right now and I know it. A part of me wants a hero to rescue me when I’ve learned I need to be my own heroine. He’s a mercenary. He killed people for money. I don’t love this man. I love the one I thought he once was. I reply with: Because you’re a killer?
Because you belong with me.
Says the man who left me and never looked back. Pain rips through me, the kind of pain I should have felt when my fiancé was buried inside his campaign manager but did not. Go away, Savage, I reply.
I will never make that mistake again, is his reply. And one day you’ll call me Rick again.
I scowl at my phone and punch a fast reply: How about asshole? How about jerk? How about asshole?
You already said asshole, he responds.
I grimace and type: Bastard!
You can be more creative, he challenges. Why don’t you meet me? Seeing my face might inspire new word choices. As a bonus, you can hit me a few times and I can kiss you again. You can even kiss me back if you want to. Even better, we can get naked and work out all of your anger. It might take a month but I’m good for it if you are.
Are you done now? I challenge this time.
Never, he answers. Not with you. That’s the point.
“The stylist is here early!” Bianca announces and this extra time to plan a way to deal with Gabriel is lost, at least, for now.
I’m whisked out of the kitchen and end up in one of the many spare bedrooms inside the mansion, this one with its own bathroom. The stylist, Karen, is a gorgeous black woman in her mid-thirties in a stylish pair of cream-colored pants she’s paired with a cream-colored tank, and she presents me with a rack of stunning gowns with labels such as Valentino, Gucci, Chanel, and Fendi, and then leaves me alone for a few minutes to try them on.