Disillusioned (Swept Away 2)

“Why’s that?”

“We’re both powerful in our own ways and we both have hidden depths and dangers.” All of a sudden he looked sad. “And you never see them next to each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever seen a mountain overlooking the ocean?”

“No, I’ve never seen that.”

“I wish I could trust you, Bianca. I wish I could tell you the truth and know that you’d understand—”

“You wish you could trust me?” I laughed. “I will never trust you again, never.”

“I wish you would.” He grabbed my arms and pulled me to him. “Don’t you understand, Bianca, this is more than both of us. This is about a past that neither one of us understands.”

“What would you have me do, Jakob?” I asked softly. “What would you have me do?”

“Forget everything.” His voice was tense as he pleaded with me. The muscles at the side of his jaw were clenched. “If you want to be safe, you need to forget everything.”

“I don’t care about being safe. I want answers. I want to know if my mother was murdered. I want to know if your father had her killed just so he could have a successful business.”

“Do you think it’s as simple as that, Bianca? Do you think that life is ever as simple as that?”

“You know the answers. You know secrets that I don’t. And I don’t know why you won’t tell me.” I gulped. “What are you afraid of, Jakob? Are you scared that I’m going to take all of your money? Are you afraid that this hotel, your planes, your cars, everything you own, is going to belong to me? Is that why you kidnapped me? Is that why you tried to frighten me off? At what point did you come up with this plan? Was it the first time that David asked you to meet me or the fifth? Is this why you never wanted us to meet?” I froze as thoughts ran in my head clumsily.

“David never told me you were anxious to meet . . .” Jakob frowned as his voice trailed off.

“Sure he didn’t. I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time, Mattias. You know that. David called you repeatedly while we were together, but you’d never accept our invitations. And meeting you—or should I say Mattias—was all I talked about on the island. Oh, how you must have laughed at me!”

“I never laughed at you.”

“How gullible I was,” I continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “From the first moment, when I came to in the trunk of the car, you must have been laughing at me. How easy I was to fool.”

“Bianca, what we had, what we shared, it was—”

“Shut up.” I glared at him, my heart feeling as if it were going to explode in sadness and confusion. “Just shut up. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I don’t want to listen to your lies anymore.”

“Maybe the person you’re maddest at is yourself.”

“Why would I be mad at myself?” I snarled at him, but I knew that he was partially right. Even now a part of me wanted to trust him. I’d let my guard down when I had no idea who he really was. I had given myself to him. Even now my body craved his touch and wanted to go back to the hotel room with him. I wanted to be touched, consumed, taken, by him. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare that had become my life. I wanted him to be my Jakob, my protector, the man who’d made me believe there was someone out there for me. And that made me hate myself and my weakness for this man.

“Maybe because you ignored the true clues, the answers that were sitting right in front of you. Maybe you know what the truth really is and you just don’t want to admit it to yourself.”

“You have a gift.” I shook my head sadly. “You have a gift for manipulating people. If I wasn’t so strong, you might have made me believe this was all in my head, that I was the one in the wrong.”

“The truth always wins out, Bianca.” His eyes narrowed. “And we do pay for the sins of our fathers and mothers.” He sighed. “But none of this is in your head, Bianca. We both know that. It just might be that we’re on opposite sides of the truth.”

“The opposite of the truth is falsehood,” I said softly. “You’re on the side of lies.”

“It could be that we’re both on the side of the truth. But that’s something we still need to figure out. I just hope that I can do it soon.”

“Let’s hope so.” I stared at him, wondering how I could both love and hate so deeply the man in front of me. “I certainly hope so.”

Chapter Three

I didn’t open my eyes until the plane landed in New York. I felt like a stranger to my own city as I stood in the taxi line with the small brown bag a nameless air steward had given me along with a wad of bills. I opened the bag slowly, wondering what Jakob had sent me home with. The bag contained my cell phone, a cardigan, an envelope, and a bottle of water. I stared at the items blankly, my mind still fuzzy from the plane ride. I couldn’t believe I was finally back in civilization. I couldn’t believe he had let me go, just like that. Why had he kidnapped me if he’d been so willing to let me go so easily? My heart felt heavy as I realized that the end had come before there had even been a beginning. I had already failed.

“Where you going, ma’am?” the taxi guy asked as the next yellow cab pulled up.

“Manhattan.”

“Cross streets?”