thecutedara

Kidnapped, Taken to a private island. I never thought this could happen to me. I never imagined one chance meeting on the eve of my eighteenth birthday could change my life so completely.

Now I belong to him. To Julian. To a man who is as ruthless as he is beautiful - a man whose touch makes me burn. A man whose tenderness I find more devastating than his cruelty.

My captor is an enigma. I don't know who he is or why he took me. There is a darkness inside him - a darkness that scares me even as it draws me in.

My name is Nora Leston, and this is my story.

Two Heart

"Whose bedroom is it?" I ask, a sick feeling appearing in my stomach.


I stare at him, feeling colder by the minute. "Jake's?"


I begin to shake inside. "Why is it on your TV?"


"Do you remember when I told you that Jake is safe as long as you behave?"


I stop breathing for a second. "Yes . . ." My whisper is barely audible.


Truthfully, I had forgotten about his initial threat to Jake, too consumed with the experience of my own captivity. I don't think I took the threat seriously to begin with, certainly not after I learned we were on an island thousands of miles away from my hometown. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had been convinced Julian can't really harm Jake. Not from a distance, at least.


"Good," Julian says. "Then you'll understand why I'm doing this. I don't want to keep you locked up, unable to go anywhere or do anything. This island is your new home, and I want you to be happy here—"


Happy here? I'm more than ever convinced that he's crazy.


"—but I can't have you trying to hurt Beth in pointless escape attempts. You need to learn that there are consequences to your actions—"


The sick feeling inside me spreads throughout my body. "I'm sorry! I won't do it anymore! I won't, I promise!" My words are hurried and jumbled. I don't know if I can prevent what's about to happen, but I have to try. "I won't hurt Beth, and I won't try to escape. Please, Julian, I learned my lesson . . ."


Julian looks at me almost sadly. "No, Nora. You haven't. I had to come back today, cutting short my business trip because of what you did. Beth is not here to be your jailer. That's not her role. She's here to take care of you, to make sure you're comfortable and content. I can't have you repaying her kindness by trying to kill her—"


"I wasn't trying to kill her! I just wanted . . ." I stop, not wanting to reveal my plan to him.


"You thought you could take her hostage?" Julian looks amused now. "To do what? Get her to take you off the island? Help you reach the outside world?"


I look at him, neither denying nor admitting it.


"Well, Nora, let me explain something to you. Even if your attack had succeeded—which it wouldn't have, because Beth is more than capable of handling one small girl—she wouldn't have been able to help you. When I leave, the plane leaves with me. There's no boat or any other way off the island."


His words confirm what I had already suspected from my explorations. But I'm still hoping that—


"And I'm the only one who has access to my office. There's no computer or communication equipment anywhere else in the house. All Beth can do is send me a direct message on a special line that we have set up. So you see, my pet, she would've been quite useless as a hostage."


Chapter 24