Lap of Luxury (Love Don't Cost a Thing)

For once

he doesn’t look angry. His blue-gray eyes are filled with concern. “I don’t believe you.”

As if I’d lie about something like that. Chest heaving, I say, “Just be happy there’s no one coming after me.”

“Where are your parents? Are they dead?”

“No. I don’t know.”

Damir stares at me for a full minute, and then growls, “This isn’t fucking good enough.” He turns back to his laptop and starts typing angrily.

I watch him, massaging my wrist and frowning. When I come around behind him to look at the screen, I see he’s on the Crimestoppers website. “What are you doing?”

He doesn’t look up from typing. “I’m reporting you missing.”

“What? Why?”

“There should be police out there looking for you. People being questioned. Investigations. Reports.”

I laugh incredulously. “Damir, you’re crazy! You’re my kidnapper. You’re not supposed to be the one who reports me missing. You’re supposed to be happy that no one’s coming after me.”

I read over his shoulder. Bethany Voight. Five-foot-six, black hair, Caucasian, twenty-one-years-old. Last seen arriving at work in the City of London. Disappearance possibly connected to the British-Slovenian citizens Damir Ravnikar and Mikhail Ravnikar, and British citizen Ciara Alders, who have all recently left the United Kingdom.

“Don’t put—” I start to say, Don’t put that bit about me being connected to you, or they might really find me, before I remember that I actually do want the police to find me. I stare at Damir, perplexed. “You realize this could make things more dangerous for you? If my photo ends up in the press, someone might recognize me.” If I’m ever taken ashore. Maybe he never will.

Damir finishes the form, and hits submit. “It changes nothing. I assumed people were looking for you.” He stands up and puts two hands on my shoulders, and stares deep into my eyes. “Why isn’t anyone looking for you?”

Is he pitying me? I shrug his hands off angrily. “Because I haven’t got anyone to miss me. I haven’t got any parents. I lost all my old friends, and I never made any new ones.”

He frowns deeper. “How did this happen to you?”

“Mind your own business!”

“Bethany,” he says tightly, but I ignore him. Shame is squirming in my belly like knots of thick worms. Why did he have to tell me that no one had even noticed I was gone? I planned on making new friends. I really did, but it was too painful meeting up with the other foster girls after a while, and I just couldn’t relate to the girls I’d meet at work or uni. Once they got to know me, they’d think I’m a freak, and I have a hard time hiding what goes on inside my head. Too often I blurt out exactly what I’m think, so it was best just to take a break from people for a while.

“Bethany.”

My eyes snap to his. “What do you want me to say? You think I’m taking all your bullshit in my stride because I’m happy, popular and well-adjusted? You idiot.”

I think he’s going to slap me, but instead he cups my face between his hands. “If everyone in the world has turned their back on you, then I’m sorry. But you know what? Everyone means shit to me. Everyone but you.”

I take a shuddering breath. “I’m not falling for this manipulative bullshit. If you think you’re going to say a few nice things to me and then tomorrow we’re going to be wielding machine guns and robbing banks together, you’re barking up the wrong badly-adjusted tree.”

He grins. “Not banks. Only private mansions, and you won’t need any weapon except that beautiful body of yours.”

“What?”

Instead of answering, he wraps his arms around me and plants a tender kiss on my forehead. “Fuck. Everyone,” he whispers. “They’re not worth the pain.”

“That us-against-the-world bullshit isn’t going to work on me,” I whisper, my eyes closed, cheek pressed against his chest. He’s holding me tighter than anyone’s ever held me in my life. “You might have reported me missing, but you’re still my captor. So fuck you, too.”

Damir takes hold of my hips and pushes me back so he can look into my face. “Watch your pretty rosebud mouth, princesa, or I’ll find a way to fill it.”

“I’ll watch nothing. I’m not scared of you.”

I brace for his stinging slap across my face. The swift punch in my guts that will leave me doubled over and gasping for breath.

But neither come.