Dani
I hated this bar.
I hated this area.
I hated the hooker skirt and top I was wearing.
And I really hated the sickly sweet drink I was sipping.
However, I also wanted to see Greg Becker, and I knew he’d arrive here eventually. He was habitually late for almost everything, so I knew I’d have to be patient.
“Hey, little lady,” a tall, drunk man said to me as he stumbled to the bar. “A sweet thing like you shouldn’t be alone. How much?”
My skin crawled as the guy’s hand squeezed the cheek of my ass through my tight leather skirt, and his face moved so close to mine that I could smell his rotten breath.
I should expect to be propositioned. I’m in a bar where most of the women are prostitutes. This is where they get most of their hookups.
Nevertheless, I let out a squeamish scream as the cheek of my butt got palmed and squeezed even harder.
“Not for sale,” I said in a warning voice, ready to forcibly remove his hands from my body. He was so drunk that he’d probably fall over if he didn’t have any support.
I never got the opportunity to test my theory and shake off his grip. One very large fist to the drunk’s face and he toppled like a ton of bricks.
I jerked my head to the left to see who had rescued me.
Then I took a second look.
Marcus? What in the hell was he doing here?
“Let’s go,” he grumbled as he clasped my hand and pulled me awkwardly off the barstool.
I stumbled over the unconscious man at my feet, barely avoiding putting a stiletto in his privates. “I can’t leave. I’m meeting someone,” I protested.
“Not anymore,” he answered in a graveled voice.
I was already outside the door when I dug my heels in, trying to yank my hand from his. Marcus was wicked strong, and I’d be compelled to keep moving if he kept dragging me along. “What are you doing here?” I asked breathlessly, stopping him temporarily, but still unable to break his grip.
“Taking your ass back to where you belong.”
“I belong here. I have a date, Marcus. I can’t just leave. I need to see Greg.”
“Didn’t anything Jett told you sink in?” Marcus replied stiffly. “Becker is an asshole and a goddamn criminal.”
“I heard Jett. I just didn’t agree,” I said huffily. “I’m old enough to decide who to go out with, for God’s sake.”
“Not if you’re making the wrong choices,” he replied in a clipped voice.
I both loved and hated his arrogant voice. The tone, the confidence, and the blunt, no-nonsense inflections in the deep baritone were uniquely Marcus Colter, but the things he said annoyed me to no end.
I yanked on my imprisoned hand again, but couldn’t free myself. Marcus had a tight grip on me, but he wasn’t hurting me. “And who are you to decide if my choices are right or wrong?”
“They’re wrong,” he said flatly. “Let’s move.”
I had to either stumble along behind him or go face-first into the pavement. Since I was a survivor, I followed him.
I cursed myself for sharing so much with my brother, Jett. He’d obviously sent Marcus in his place since he disapproved of me seeing Becker. I hadn’t expected that, nor did I want it.
“Marcus, I have to go back,” I argued. “Greg will be at his bar any minute.”
“He owns that shithole?” he asked without slowing his pace.
“It’s not that bad,” I lied. “It’s a friendly, local place.”
“Yeah. Just one big happy family of criminals and hookers,” he rasped.
“Not everyone is born rich,” I shot back at him as I worked to keep pace with his long stride.
“No. They aren’t. But Becker is rich. The bastard doesn’t need you to meet with him there, and he could keep you out of his dishonest endeavors.”
I was silent for a moment before I replied, “What makes you think he’s dishonest?”
He slowed down a little as he turned his head toward me and grimaced. “Apparently, you’re the only one who doesn’t know he’s a crook, and a traitor to his own damn country.”
I ignored his accusations. “Stop. Please. I have to go back.”
“We’re getting the hell out of here, and then you’re going to tell me how exactly you two got together in the first place.”
“I can’t go with you.” I started struggling hard to free myself from Marcus. I twisted my arm, hoping he’d be forced to let go of my hand.
“Stop. You’ll injure yourself,” he demanded.
“I’m not going with you,” I argued.
“Yeah, you are,” he insisted.
A startled scream exited my mouth as Marcus bent over, lifted my body off the ground, and threw me over his shoulder.
I pounded on his back, fairly certain my ass was probably hanging out of the short skirt I was wearing. “Put me down,” I said, angry now that he was carrying me like a caveman.
His rock solid body bearing my weight effortlessly, he moved in long strides that ate up distance rapidly, ignoring my protests. The only thing I could see—unless I strained my neck—was the back of his suit jacket.
Dammit! This couldn’t happen. I had to be at the bar!
“Hello, George. We’re ready to go back to the penthouse,” I heard Marcus say to somebody I couldn’t see.
“Yes, sir,” the other man—obviously named George—replied, his voice not betraying a single iota of alarm that his boss had come back to the vehicle with a woman slung over his shoulder.
“Oooff!” The air was forced out of my lungs as my back landed against the soft leather of a car seat. My head was spinning as I tried to get my bearings, suddenly upright again after being carried upside down.
Marcus entered on the other side of the car, taking up the vacant space in the backseat beside me.
The vehicle was in motion before my head cleared.
“Dammit!” I cursed, pushing the hair back from my face as I straightened myself up in the seat. “Do you understand that you just pretty much kidnapped me?”
“You left me very little choice,” Marcus replied nonchalantly.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm my nerves. “You had a choice. You could have just left me alone. I’m a grown woman. I’ve traveled the world alone. I can make my own damn choices.”
I still couldn’t figure out why Marcus was even in Miami, and at Greg’s bar. The only reason I could come up with was my brother.
“Jett was concerned,” he confirmed.
I sighed. The last thing I wanted was for my youngest brother to be upset. Jett had been through so damn much, and he deserved a little bit of peace. “He doesn’t need to worry. I’m all grown up. I have been for years.”
“Why are you here, Danica? What happened to your career? You haven’t been outside of the US for months now,” he asked in a graveled voice.
I didn’t lie to him. “I needed a break. The places where I really needed to be—I just couldn’t go to right now.”
After what had happened to me, I’d needed some serious counseling, and I still wasn’t done going to therapy. I wasn’t able to go back to reporting in the Middle East without fear, and that had always been my beat. It was a fear I hadn’t been able to conquer, so I’d finally given the network my notice and struck out on my own to work as an independent journalist. My sister, Harper, thought I’d pushed too hard to go back to work, and maybe she was partly right, but my kidnapping had irrevocably changed me. I’d never be the same woman I was before I’d been taken as a hostage.
“You should take as much time off as you need. Nobody expected you to bounce back and be working again.”
“I wanted the distraction. I couldn’t stand being alone with my own thoughts,” I admitted. “But I couldn’t do it. I’m not the same person anymore, and I’m not quite sure who I am.”
Marcus spoke hoarsely in the dark interior of the vehicle. “You’re still the same, Dani. Inside, you haven’t changed. You’re just seeing the world around you differently.”
I leaned my head back against the headrest, wondering if what Marcus said was true. Maybe I hadn’t changed. Maybe he was right. Maybe I just couldn’t look at the world with the same innocence that I used to. “I hope so,” I answered wistfully.
“You aren’t going to find whatever you need with Gregory Becker,” he warned.
“I don’t know that yet,” I told him firmly. “I don’t even know him that well.”
“You don’t need to know him any better,” Marcus answered stiffly.
“You don’t understand,” I told him in a shaky voice.
“Then please enlighten me,” he suggested drily. “Because I can’t see the appeal of someone like him.” He hesitated before asking, “Did you fuck him?”
“What?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.
“Did. You. Fuck. Him?” His voice was husky and grim.
“No!” The word shot out of my mouth without censoring my response. “Not that it’s any of your business who I sleep with,” I added.
“I’m making it my business.”
“Because of Jett,” I guessed.
“No. Because I risked lives to save your ass. I didn’t do it so you could throw that life away on a loser like Gregory Becker.”
“It’s my life,” I snapped at him. Marcus was making everything difficult.
“Break it off,” he commanded. “Do you really want to marry a man like him? Jesus, Dani, he’s a criminal. He just hasn’t gotten caught yet. But he will. And you’ll be caught in the middle of the entire mess, or dead because of his enemies. He doesn’t give a damn about you. If he did, he wouldn’t want you to wait in a bar filled with drunks and prostitutes.”
“I’m not marrying him,” I said angrily. “I’m just dating him. That’s all.”
“No more dates. No more meeting him at his bar. No more anything. Tell him you’ve lost interest and move on,” Marcus drawled.
“Stop!” I suddenly hollered at the driver. Surprisingly, he brought the limo to a halt.
“What are you doing, Danica?” Marcus reached over and grabbed my wrist.
I shook off his hold. “I’m home. My condo is in the building right behind us.”
“I didn’t know you had a place here.”
“I didn’t know you did, either,” I told him as I opened the car door. “But apparently you do.”
My neighborhood was well lit, but I still couldn’t see Marcus’s expression as he leaned over the backseat. “My place is close, so I’ll be around. This is a decent area. Just stay out of Becker’s turf.”
I closed the door without answering, and then scrambled to the stairs of my condo building as fast as my high stilettos would take me there.
Marcus didn’t get out of the car, but he didn’t leave until I’d made it past security and ducked into the building.
By the time I got to my condo and looked out the window, Marcus was gone.