“Do you remember I told you I thought the Bradleys had something to do with my mother’s death?”
“Yeah.” She frowned. “Why?”
“Mattias Bradley kidnapped me.”
“No way!” Her eyes widened in shock.
“Did you bring your Balenciaga bag with you?” Yes, it was still slung over her shoulder. “Did you take out my papers?”
“What papers?” She frowned as I pulled the bag off her arm and opened it eagerly, my heart racing. I dug my way through her makeup and let out a sigh of relief as my fingers felt the slickness of the plastic bag. She hadn’t taken it out. I pulled out the bag and rifled through the copied documents I’d hidden, feeling as if I’d just won the lottery. “You still have them.”
“What are they?” She sat down next to me and frowned as I held the pages next to my heart.
“Documents that prove that the Bradleys were involved in my mother’s death and that I’m a rightful owner of Bradley Inc.”
“No way!” Her jaw dropped. “Really?” She looked annoyed at herself. “I really need to start cleaning out my purse more regularly.”
“Well, I don’t know exactly. . . . I mean, I need to speak to my father’s attorney to see what legal rights I have, but I’m pretty sure these documents make pretty damning evidence.”
“Wow. And I had them all this time and didn’t even know.” She shook her head and gazed at me in shock. “These are the originals?”
“Oh, no.” I bit my lower lip. “The originals are in a safe place, my security-deposit box. But I’m not going there to retrieve them now; someone is still trying to scare me off.”
“You’re scaring me, Bianca.” Rosie’s face was white. “Why were you kidnapped and how? And what do you mean someone is trying to scare you off?”
“When we were at the bar, someone drugged me or something. I woke up after I passed out in the back of a car with a man. And then we were taken to a deserted island and left there. I thought he’d been kidnapped as well, but he hadn’t—he was the one who planned it. Rosie, Mattias Bradley kidnapped me! I read in the newspapers yesterday that Bradley Inc. is merging with some other company, and I think I was kidnapped so I couldn’t stop the merger from going through. I think they were scared I’d stake my claim on the company, and as a major shareholder, they couldn’t do anything without me.”
“Are you saying you’re rich?” Rosie’s eyes lit up.
“What?” I frowned, too caught up in my own story to follow her train of thought.
“If you’re a part owner of Bradley Inc., that would mean you’re rich rich rich!” she gushed.
I gave her a weak smile. Was that really her response to everything I’d just said? Then I remembered something she’d told me before I’d been kidnapped. “Didn’t you tell me you were working on some deal for Bradley, or trying to land some big deal?”
“Yeah, we were.” She nodded. “We had a few meetings, but we didn’t get the contract.”
“Did you meet Mattias Bradley, then?” I stared at her face thoughtfully.
“No.” She shook her head and stared right into my eyes. “I wish I had, though. I would have slapped him hard for you.” She grabbed my hands and squeezed them. “So what are you going to do now? Call the police?”
“I don’t think I can call the police.” I shook my head. “My story sounds fantastical. What would I even say? No, I need to think of something else.” I closed my eyes for a few seconds and tried to ignore the image of Jakob’s face in my mind. “Something doesn’t seem right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” I opened my eyes slowly and bit my lower lip. “Everything doesn’t add up.”
“What was Mattias like? Did he hurt you?”
“No, he didn’t hurt me.” A dagger of pain ran through me. “I don’t know what to say about him. I don’t know how to feel. He was nice—different, but nice. And he was handsome—oh, boy, was he handsome. He had piercing blue eyes that seemed to see into my soul. His arms were sinewy and strong, and his chest was hard as rock, but so soft to the touch.” My voice trailed off as Rosie’s eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean, ‘soft to the touch’?”
“Nothing.” My face turned bright red.
“Bianca London!” she screeched. “You hooked up with him?”
“I . . .”
“You hooked up with the man who kidnapped you?”
“I didn’t know then that he was the one who kidnapped me.” I bit my lower lip. “I thought he was an innocent bystander like me.” Rosie was already looking confused, so I told her everything from the beginning—from waking up with Jakob on the beach, to Steve’s arrival, all the way to our rescue and the phone call I’d heard in Jakob’s hotel room.
I shook my head angrily. “I should have known better. I should have known it didn’t make sense.”
“So . . . was Jakob good?”
“Rosie!” I exclaimed loudly as I blushed. “He was the best.”
“Oh.”
“I know.” I shrugged. “Isn’t that life?”
“I can’t believe he slept with you, knowing he’d kidnapped you.”