“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Please, Elsie, that’s not a way for a lady to talk. I know you’re surprised, but still.”

“Surprised? Seriously, you know I’m surprised? That’s like saying the ocean is sort of big. I’m a hell of a lot more than surprised, Caleb. This is ridiculous.”

Elsie’s heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would burst out of her chest just like the alien in that freaky movie with Sigourney Weaver. Her mother had a saying, out of the frying pan and into the fire, and it felt like it was more than a little bit applicable to her life now. She had walked out of Travis’s office and the argument she’d had there only to be delivered into Caleb’s office, where she was clearly about to have another argument; this one probably worse than the first. She didn’t like these arguments; she didn’t want anything to do with them; and she longed for the safety and comfort of her own couch with such a ferocity that it would have been funny if it wasn’t so dismal. She didn’t want to argue with Caleb, but what he was telling her he wanted her to do was absurd and him telling her to act like a lady on top of it was just plain insulting. To make matters worse, she could see that he was already incredibly agitated and ready to fight if that was necessary. It made her wonder what, if anything, had happened the night before, but it was a question she wasn’t going to ask. She didn’t want to learn more about him, not now, maybe not ever. She just wanted him to leave her alone and abandoned this crazy idea he’d come up with some time during the night.

“It’s not, actually,” Caleb answered in a condescending voice that made her blood boil. “People do it all of the time, Elsie. It’s called travel.”

“Right, but most people aren’t forced into said travel, are they?! I don’t think so! I’m pretty sure that’s called kidnapping.”

“Now who’s the one being ridiculous?” Caleb scoffed, looking at Elsie like she was only a silly little girl and nothing more. “This is hardly what I would call kidnapping, Elsie.”

“Oh really? What would you call it then? What else do you call it when someone has you go somewhere against your will?”

“Please, you’re being terribly melodramatic.”

The situation Elsie found herself in was only compounded by the relentless smugness of the insufferable man she was talking to. Caleb looked so sure that he was right that she probably would have fought him, no matter what he was saying. If he’d wanted to argue the color of the sky, she would have happily gone along with it, just to make sure he didn’t get the last word. And the thing about it was, even if she hadn’t felt so inclined to battle him to the death, no matter what he said, she would have argued with him now. She’d walked out of the disaster of a confrontation with Travis to her ringing phone, and when she’d answered it, Caleb had asked her to come in as soon as possible. She wanted to tell him no, but it had just been made very clear to her that working for Caleb was still her job, and she also remembered all too clearly how she’d told him she would come when he asked for her. So instead of telling him to go away and leave her alone forever, Elsie had arrived at his office without having any real idea why. Maybe he was finally going to let her get to work, that was a thought. She’d spent precious little time working on her beloved computers since coming to work for Caleb and more time than she cared for dealing with the bizarre inner workings of human relationships. Perhaps today would be the day when he gave her free reign to his computers, in which case she should really be glad he was calling her in. The sooner she could figure out the source of his breach, the sooner she would be free from the Grant Corporation and its colorful owner. She would be able to go back to life the way she had known it before, with her couch and her television and her solitary work, where nobody ever bothered her or made her feel unsure.

Except that access to all of Grant Corporation’s technical components was not the reason for him calling her in to see him, not even close. What he’d called her in for was to inform her that she would be joining him on a European trip. He had informed her of that with the same tone as one might tell his secretary to please pick up his dry cleaning, as if it were no big deal at all. For Elsie, on the other hand, it was a very big deal indeed. Part of what she was now resenting the most was the fact that he was treating her like she was overreacting about his request. It was like he was trying to make her feel crazy, and if that was the case, it was working beautifully.

“But I’m not, Caleb. I’m not being melodramatic, and if you can’t tell that, it’s not my fault. If you can’t see that this isn’t the kind of request a normal man makes of a woman, I think that says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about me.”

“Fine,” Caleb responded quickly, almost angrily, beginning to pace back and forth in front of her and running his hand through his thick, glossy hair. “Fine, I guess I can conceded on that point. But who says it has to be normal? You’re working for me, right?”

“Well sure, but—”

“And do you think you’re the only person in the history of the universe to be asked to go on a business trip?”

“No, but—”

“There. There you go. Think of it as a routine business trip if you like. If it makes you feel better, think of it just like that.”

“But I can’t!”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because, Caleb!”

“Sorry, you’ll have to try again. Because isn’t an answer. You’re certainly a smart enough woman to know that.”

“Fine, you want a reason?”

“I do.”

Elsie was stalling, and she was pretty sure Caleb knew it. She had plenty of reasons for not wanting to travel across an ocean with Caleb, but none of them were things she felt like telling him to his face. They were personal reasons, reasons that she knew without having to be told would make her feel exposed if revealed, thus giving them even more power than they already had. For starters, she’d never been on a trip as big as the one Caleb was talking about. He hadn’t settled on the exact location just yet, but he knew he wanted the two of them to go somewhere in Europe… and the idea of doing that was just a little bit frightening to Elsie. She’d travelled plenty of places on her computer, but the furthest she’d made it in real life was from Texas to New York, and that had been a pretty big shock to the system all on its own. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go somewhere grand because she did, she definitely did. She’d had a passport ever since she was twelve, and she made a point of renewing it every time her seven years came up, just on the off chance that she finally really got to go somewhere. The fact that there were no stamps in that passport, not a single one, was something that bothered her more than she’d like to admit. It was one of those things that would crop up in her dreams unexpectedly, just when she thought she’d gotten over the matter enough for her subconscious not to focus on it anymore.

There was a second part to this fear of travelling, one that was even more embarrassing than the first, which was that she had never really gone anywhere with a guy aside from her father. To put it bluntly, she had always been sort of freaked out by the idea. When you were dating a guy and you lived in two separate places (which she had from every single one of her boyfriends, which hadn’t been many), you had the freedom to get away from the guy when you needed some space or if you wanted to do those grooming things the guy might not find so attractive. You didn’t have to be on your best behavior all of the time. But when travelling, she felt like that was exactly what she would have to do, and with one of the most desirable and desired men on the planet. She would have to learn how to cohabitate with someone, even if it was only temporary, and that sounded like a mountain she was unprepared to climb. To top it all off, the two of them had shared their first fake date only the night before, and it had ended in what could only really be described as disaster. If they couldn’t even make it through one night on the town together, not even an entire night at that, how in the hell were they going to get through a freaking European vacation together? They weren’t, that was how, and the longer she stood here trying to think of a reason why she absolutely couldn’t do what Caleb was asking, the less convincing her reason would look. She knew that, and so she said the first thing that came to mind, then immediately realized it wasn’t going to work. She’d thought of something, but it wasn’t going to be the thing she needed to keep her on American soil.

“I’m waiting, Elsie,” Caleb said in a voice that was actually rather gentle, smiling for the first time since their argument had begun. “Waiting for the reason you’ve got to not want to go travelling for a week or two.”

“I know that,” she snapped, her face flushing furiously. She’d just caught sight of the wall from her dream, the wall Caleb had had her pressed up against as he prepared to have his way with her. She looked at it, having to force herself to rip her eyes away, and when she looked back at Caleb, he was grinning more widely. It was like he knew what she was thinking, like he could somehow see into her head and watch her dream like a movie, and the idea of that was almost too humiliating for her to stand.

“Well?”

“Good God, you’re impatient! If you would just let me talk I could tell you.”

“My mistake. Go on.”

“I can’t go with you because I’ve got work to do.”

“Is that it?”

“What do you mean, is that it? Of course, it is.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes!” she cried out, feeling more flustered with each passing second. “It’s what I said, right? I have work to do.”

“Are you working on any cases other than mine at the moment? Travis assured me that you wouldn’t be at the start of this whole thing, but who knows. Perhaps something got lost in translation.”

“No, that’s right. This is the only thing I’m working on.”

“Well! That’s fantastic, then.”

“Fantastic? How is it fantastic?”

“Because, it means our problem is solved.”

“How do you figure? Just because the work I’m doing is for you, doesn’t mean I don’t need to be around to do it.”

“In some cases that might be true, but for me it’s simply not. Everything in the whole of the Grant Corporation is linked to my server. Whatever is going on with my company, whoever is responsible, if they’ve left any kind of trace of it, it’ll be evident on my computer. Seeing as I’ll be bringing that with me, you’ll have everything you need. Any other concerns?”

That was it. She was defeated. Defeated, and they were both well-aware that she was out of ammo, which meant she would be flying across the globe with Caleb Grant. On his private jet. She wanted to throw a tantrum and stomp her feet like a little kid for not getting her way, but there was another part of her, a part of her that was buried deeper down inside of her, that was actually sort of thrilled. As far as she was concerned, she had done everything she could think of to try and get out of the trip, and that was something she could feel good about. It was, in her opinion, the right thing to do. But now that she knew there was no way to get out of it, she allowed herself to think about what the trip might be like. There were so many places she wanted to go, so many that if Caleb asked her which one she’d like to go to (which she had no reason to expect that he would) she wouldn’t have a clue what to say. She was about to open her mouth to ask him if he wouldn’t mind giving her some details at the very least, if he actually expected her to pick up her life and go across the world, when the door to his office burst open. That was something that seemed to be happening an awful lot lately, and when Elsie looked behind Marlin, who had been the one to do the intruding this time, she saw that the secretary had only made a half-hearted attempt at keeping him where he belonged. There were no cries of “Stop!” this time, and really, why would there be? It wasn’t like it would work, and what was the point in trying a thing over and over when the result was always going to be the same thing? Besides, Marlin didn’t look like he was in the mood to have a friendly conversation. Elsie was pretty sure that if she’d been the one in the secretary’s position, she wouldn’t have said a single word of protest as he passed her by.

“I’m sorry to just barge in on you like this, brother,” Marlin said in a booming, slightly wavering voice as his red face dripped little beads of sweat, “but we’ve got to talk. This shit has got to stop.”

Caleb glanced at Elsie, which was when Marlin noticed her presence in the room. His face darkened for a moment, and then was smooth again, but in that moment Elsie experienced a rush of adrenaline accompanied by an unpleasant little chill. The expression Marlin had worn in that very first second, the second of recognition that came before he was able to get his more appropriate public expression in order, had been a very dark one indeed. In that moment, she had seen that he hated her. There was no reason for him to hate her, he didn’t even know her, but there was no mistaking the look in his eyes. She was confident in what she had seen, and she didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t just the look she didn’t like, either. She didn’t like how quickly he had been able to replace it with a look of mild friendliness with maybe just a hint of annoyance. That look, that second look, was the kind one might expect a man to wear when his plan was encumbered by the presence of an unexpected person. It was the kind of sleazy change she would expect from a car salesman, and it made her dislike him instantly. Whatever he had come here for, she didn’t trust it, and her eyes turned back to Caleb’s face quickly, hoping to see some recognition that he had seen the same thing as hers. When she saw the look in his eyes, her stomach dropped, and she wanted nothing more than to get out of there as quickly as humanly possible. There was a lot about her drunken night with Caleb that she didn’t remember any more of than just a bad feeling, but there was one thing she remembered for sure. She could still see the hard glint in Caleb’s eyes when he’d told her that she wasn’t to mess with his family, not ever, which made the funny feeling she now had about his brother Marlin all the worse. She pushed it down inside of herself, pushed it down and pretended it wasn’t there, but she knew it wasn’t going to go away. It was her gut talking to her now, and her gut had never been one to sit back and remain silent.