Desire's Captive

'Why not?' Olivia objected. 'It will encourage him to pay the ransom that much sooner.'

'It could also panic him into doing something foolish,' Nico corrected coolly. 'Remember what happened with John Hunter.'

Saffron's heart thumped as she heard the name of her father's great friend.

'You were responsible for killing John Hunter?' she whispered painfully, her eyes fixed on Nico's face.

'Not personally,' he mocked smoothly.

'Nico doesn't care for bloodshed,' Piero intervened. 'He is too nice.'

'I am too sensible,' Nico corrected calmly. 'Murdering Hunter achieved nothing and in fact cost us money, as the ransom was never paid over. By all means let us dispose of the evidence.' His eyes rested coolly and without emotion on Saffron's strained face. 'But let us first of all make sure we have our money.'

If anything he was worse than the others, Saffron thought bitterly. They at least had the excuse of their belief in their cause, if excuse it could be called, but Nico, she sensed, did not share their commitment. He was too cynical, too aloof. So why had he allied himself to these people? What was he doing with them? She could only think of one reason—money, and her heart thudded erratically. Could she perhaps persuade him to set her free by offering a bribe, by suggesting that her father might pay him to return her to him unharmed?

'Smile,' he ordered in a softly persuasive voice, as he set up the camera. 'For Daddy.'

Firmly compressing her lips, Saffron refused even to look at the camera. With a faint sigh Nico approached her, gripping her chin firmly as he forced her head round.

'Why are you indulging her in this fashion?' Olivia demanded, eyes narrowing suspiciously. 'You are going soft, my friend.'

As though to refute her words, Nico's grip of Saffron's chin tightened painfully, his eyes grey chips of ice as he turned her round to face the camera.

'Smile, Saffron,' he told her emotionlessly, 'or else I might change my mind and agree with Olivia that tears would have more effect on your father.'

'How can you do this?' Saffron hissed at him, forgetting the mental vow she had made not to lower herself to his level by exchanging conversation with him.

'Very easily, when I am dealing with gullible fools like you,' Nico mocked softly, watching the colour drain from her face.

'You ... you sadist!' she whispered sickly. 'I suppose your twisted mind thinks that's something to brag about—how you fooled and deceived me? and I fell for it. Well, go on,' she cried bitterly, 'tell them. I'm sure they'll all thoroughly approve. You aren't fit to be part of the human race!' she finished in a voice thick with tears.

'Be careful,' Nico warned tersely, 'otherwise I might find it necessary to prove to you how antisocial I can be.' His eyes rested meaningfully on the curves of her breasts, and to her chagrin Saffron felt herself colour, as she looked fully at him. It was what he wanted.

Flashbulbs popped around her as Nico moved, quickly snapping her before she could look away, and she was forced to admit that he had outwitted her. She hated him—hated him!

'And now the tape,' she came back to earth to hear Nico saying in a brisk businesslike fashion. 'Let's have a few words for dear old Daddy, telling him how much you're enjoying yourself.'

'Go to hell!' Saffron shot back at him as he produced a miniature recorder. 'I'm not saying a word!'

The way in which he advanced on her, surefooted as a mountain cat, coupled with his calm, 'Oh, but I think you are,' had the effect of completely undermining her willpower,

'We can do this two ways,' Nico continued evenly. 'Cleanly and without any mess or fuss, or...'

He paused expectantly, and Saffron knew that he wasn't making idle threats. For a moment she longed to reiterate her earlier comment, but common sense prevailed, and feeling her hatred of him grow by the second she forced back the defiant words, and managed a husky, 'What do I have to say?' trying to ignore her outraged pride that she should capitulate so easily beneath the threat of force, but the effect of her incarceration in her small prison, plus the awful inescapability of her capture, had seriously undermined her spirit.

The tape recording was mercifully brief, simply half a dozen sentences telling her father that she was in great danger; that he was not to go to the police and that he must do everything the kidnappers wanted.

'Excellent,' Nico mocked when she had finished. 'See how easy life can be when you co-operate?'

This time she did give in to her emotions, her muttered, 'God, I hate you!' bringing only narrowed grey eyes in a concentrated gaze on her face, for a few telling seconds before she flushed, her eyes unable to hold that inimical gaze.

'Right,' Nico announced when he had packed the small tape away safely, 'everyone to their posts. Saffron, you will help Olivia with the lunch. What?' he murmured silkily when she started to protest that they might have kidnapped her but they couldn't force her into behaving like a household drudge. 'You find housework too menial? Perhaps you would prefer to work on the vines with Guido.'

God, she loathed him! He had found her weakest spot with diabolical ease. He had known how she felt about Guido, how he made her flesh crawl with sick horror.

Shaking her head numbly, she followed Olivia towards the crude sink, Nico's mocking laughter ringing in her ears.

Olivia was obviously not particularly domesticated, and with a grimace she pushed the bowl of vegetables towards Saffron.