‘Where exactly are we going, Valenti?’ she demanded for the third…fourth time?
His gaze dropped to her and raked over her face for several beats before he answered. ‘I have a cabin fifty miles from here. It’s secluded. No one will find us. Unless we wish them to. It’s where I mean to keep you safe until this inconvenience is over.’
No. No no no.
She stood frozen and he paced a few more steps before he realised she wasn’t following. And predictably, when he turned around, his face was a mask of bridled impatience.
‘Same offer applies, Lotte. Come willingly. Or be carried. Those are your two choices.’
Lotte sucked in a breath—an exercise she seemed to be doing quite poorly tonight—her face burning at the thought of Valenti tossing her over his shoulder again like a sack of grain.
Remember you’re just his client. He would order every one of them about just like this. The reminder had the curious twin effects of bolstering and bruising as she started walking on even shakier legs towards the aircraft whose rotors were slowly spinning into life.
But Lotte couldn’t stop the feeling that if she could’ve wished for anything at all in the world, she would’ve wished tonotbe secluded in a cabin with Valenti. Because she sensed her armour was about to be severely tested.
Still she took one step. Then another. Her senses screaming at her as she followed him to the open doors of the chopper.
CHAPTER FOUR
Valentiwonderedwhethershe knew her own power.
That she above all people, even his family, had the power to command him with a word or a gesture. That in making that final promise with Helga’s last breath, he’d placed himself entirely in Lotte’s hands. Because he would slit his own throat before he allowed a single hair on her head to be harmed.
Which made her protestations and righteous anger almost…laughable.
Because along with the almost melodramatic heights of his vow came the equal, paradoxical determination and conviction that he would save herdespiteherself. So turning away from the naked plea in her eyes hadn’t been as insurmountable as it’d first seemed.
He fixed his gaze on the snow-laden horizon, thankful he hadn’t needed to act on his threat. Hadn’t needed to test his resolve by having her in his arms. Unexpectedly though, her side of the helicopter had quietened. He frowned, wondering for a moment if he’d forgotten whether she was afraid of heights.
She didn’t look panicked or distressed.
He welcomed the peace, a knot easing in his gut. He had little patience for melodramatics. He had enough of that from his mother who, apparently finding his frigid silences a challenge, had needled him since long before he had grown out of long shorts. Unfortunately, she hadn’t grown out of that particular sport and even at thirty-six he had to frequently contend with her histrionics. Her need to drag everyone down to herlevel of unhappiness because, all these decades later, she was still desperately aggrieved about not being picked as queen of Cartana. Never mind that growing up, he’d had his own battles to overcome as one of the King’s bastard sons, shunned by other snobbish aristocratic houses and his own father’s royal council. That he and Teo hadn’t even been allowed to live in Cartana or itspalaciountil much later in life.Afterhe’d been found to have a use the council couldn’t deny.
But Valenti had long shored up his foundations so that these days very little penetrated his armour.
So yes, he welcomed Lotte’s silence.
What he didn’t welcome was this need to keep glancing at her from the corner of his eye, to check for signs of distress. She shouldn’t be unhappy. She should be frothing with gratitude that he was making such an effort to keep her safe.
Twenty minutes flew by and still she said nothing.
He shifted in his seat, frowning at his inability to stop checking on her. Their headphones had two-way communication. They were guaranteed the privacy of a closed cabin, with his two bodyguards up front with his pilot. Was this the longest time she’d gone without speaking? His mouth twisted at the thought.
Her gaze flicked to him then, irritation sparking her eyes. Valenti’s stomach clenched, and his breath held as he braced for another episode of dramatics. But after a moment, she turned back to the window.
And for the first time in his life, he was served up the return experience of being given the silent treatment.
‘You asked where we were going,’ he offered gruffly.
She turned her head again, but her eyes no longer held the spark. Then she had the audacity to shrug. To dismiss him once more.
Gritting his teeth would be too much reaction so he forced himself to relax into his seat, to cross one ankle over his knee.Again, her eyes flickered over him briefly before returning to the landscape.
‘My cabin is in Syren.’
No reaction.
‘We’ll be there in another twenty minutes.’
