Chapter 2

 

Belinda Collins woke to a terrifying realisation—she wasn’t in her hotel room. She knew this because her hotel would never have allowed the heat to gather in her room to the point where she felt like she was in a sauna with a sumo wrestler sitting on her chest. No, the exclusive resort on the edge of the Amazon rainforest was all about air conditioning, thousand-count sheets and beds that made you feel like you were sleeping on a cloud. And she definitely wasn’t lying on a cloud. It felt very much like she was lying on a carpet of Lego.

But worse than the heat and the lumps beneath her was the presence of a large body lying beside her. The body was breathing, hopefully sleeping, and Belinda didn’t dare move or open her eyes until she remembered who that body belonged to. Which, considering the fog in her head and the throbbing pain in her temples, could take a very long time.

She vaguely remembered staggering out of her sister’s wedding reception, on the last night of a week filled with rainforest tours and poolside parties—all to celebrate Julia marrying Joe. Then she remembered heading for one of the cute little golf carts the hotel used to transport people around the resort. She remembered being disappointed that a SUV was waiting for her instead. She remembered her driver opening the door for her, ready to transport her to her cabana. And then…she remembered nothing at all. Nothing. Absolutely blank nothingness. She didn’t have a clue where she was, how she’d gotten here and even worse, who she was with.

This was bad. Really bad. As in international-news bad. This was worse than the time she’d gone skinny-dipping with the cast of her first movie and the paparazzi had plastered the photos of her very naked, and un-Photoshopped, backside over every tabloid in the world. It had been cellulite-ageddon. And now, here she was in trouble again. How could this have happened? She was so careful now. She was past the getting drunk and blacking out stage of her life. She was mature—okay, mature-er. She was a serious actress. An Oscar nominee, for goodness’ sake. She was also very much stuffed.

“You might as well open your eyes. I know you’re awake.”

Belinda’s eyes popped open at the sound of the deep American accent. She blinked against light that felt like ice picks stabbing into her brain and waited as a face came into focus. She frowned. She knew that face. It was attached to the most masculine man she’d ever seen, and she vaguely remembered he was some sort of fighter…

“MMA! Cage fighting,” she said with a smile, making him frown.

Wow, she hadn’t seen a man pull off a look that brooding since Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. It shot his looks from unconventional straight into panty-melting. And she had to admit, she’d been rather partial to his looks before he went all broody on her.

The man had skin the colour of warm caramel, cheekbones sharp enough to cut paper and hair that was so inky black it was almost blue. His nose had been broken at some point and hadn’t set properly. It was a crooked line on a face made up of angled planes.

A white scar cut through his left eyebrow and another curved round his jaw. Thick black lashes outlined exotic almond-shaped eyes with the palest grey irises she’d ever seen. They were hard eyes that betrayed a man who didn’t trust easily. Eyes that dared you to challenge him. Eyes that seemed to see through the polite veneer of the world around him straight to the dirt that lay beneath.

No, there was nothing pretty about John Garcia. He was a barbarian dressed in a tailored shirt and five-thousand-dollar watch—an incongruity on a man that had instantly fascinated her with his presence. He’d dominated the room when she was introduced to him earlier that day, after he’d arrived late to the week-long party. His arrival had blown every other man in the room out of the water for Belinda. Yet when he’d looked at her, she’d seen nothing but dismissal in his eyes. He was one of those men. The ones who thought she was useless because she spent her life pretending.

Which made it all the more humiliating that she’d ended up in bed with the man. “Please tell me we didn’t sleep together?” she said, without thinking it over first—a flaw she had.

His eyes went flat. Like a shark. “Don’t worry, Hollywood. You didn’t lower your standards that far. We’ve been kidnapped.”

Belinda felt her face flush as his words stung. Either the guy had a chip the size of California on his shoulder, or she’d said something to offend him when she’d been out of it. Oh, she hoped she hadn’t been rude. She wasn’t usually… Wait—kidnapped? What the hell?

“We’ve really been kidnapped? Taken? Like the movie? You mean this isn’t your room?”

“You thought this dump was my room?” The jaw clenching was back.

Belinda tore her eyes from his and looked around. They were in a shack. That was the only word for it. The walls were made of planks of untreated wood, haphazardly nailed together. Overhead, beyond the torn and grey mosquito net, was a straw roof. Beneath them was a stained mattress, on a bare dirt floor. It was as far away from a hotel room as they could get and still be indoors. It was a hovel.

“No, I don’t think this is your room.” She looked back at him. “We’ve really been kidnapped? Both of us? Are you sure?”

He gave her a terse nod, as though he was losing patience. But nothing he said made sense.

“Why would they kidnap you?” she said. “I can understand why someone would kidnap me. I get lots of threats. It’s part of being in the public eye. But you’re…?”

His jaw became even tighter than it had been before. At this rate, the guy was going to crack the bone. “I’m what?”

Intense? Sexy? Broodingly male? Obviously, a bad-tempered dickhead? “You aren’t famous.”

The tension in his jaw eased somewhat. “I saw them try to take you and I stepped in to stop it. It didn’t go as planned.”

Now Belinda felt bad for thinking he was dickhead. “I need to sit up.” She put a hand on his chest to push him out of her way.

It was a mistake. A jolt of pure electricity ran through her body as her surroundings disappeared. There was only her awareness of John. It was primal. Her body wanted his. Their chemistry was off the charts, which was not only embarrassing, but also dangerous. Getting physical with a man who barely tolerated her was a recipe for disaster. She snatched her hand away, feeling as though she’d been burned, and sat up. He backed away from her, and she noticed that his hands and feet were tied, but hers were free. It didn’t make sense. None of this did.

“Are you sure this is a real kidnapping and not a fake one?” she asked.

“Fake one?” He looked at her like she was several sandwiches short of a picnic. “This is real, Hollywood. Your driver set you up. That’s how this happened.”

Now it really didn’t make sense. “No. Brian wouldn’t have done that. He’s been with me for years.”

His face gave nothing away. “The guy opened the back door of the car for you. While you were smiling at him, someone drugged you and pulled you inside. I was the lucky bastard who stepped in to stop them and ended up going along for the ride.”

She stared into his eyes, trying to read the truth in them. She knew subterfuge. She worked in an industry of liars. And John Garcia was telling the truth—or at least he believed he was, which meant he wasn’t in on it. Because Belinda was beginning to believe that her kidnapping was nothing more than an elaborate prank.

“They drugged us. We’ve been out cold for hours,” John continued in that flat voice she hated, as though he could barely tolerate talking to her. “It’s three in the morning.”

She watched him for a couple of minutes, but he didn’t even blink. He was definitely being pranked too. Nobody was that good an actor.

“My brother and I talked about this a couple of months ago,” Belinda said. “There are security companies who arrange fake kidnappings to teach you how to act if a real one happens. I was going to attend a workshop before I took on a movie role where I played a kidnap victim, but I chickened out at the last minute. My brother thought I was a wimp and threatened to arrange to have me fake-kidnapped when I least expected it. He must have gone ahead with it and roped Brian in to help.”

John’s eyes went wide, then narrowed to hard little slits. “Listen to me carefully. This is not a joke. It is not a training exercise. You really have been kidnapped.”

She reached over and patted his arm, again feeling that strange, tingling awareness when she touched him. This time, she tried not to let it bother her and kept her hand in place.

“I know you believe what you’re saying,” she said in her most soothing tone, “but think about it carefully. A fake kidnapping is the only logical conclusion. We were in a private resort, miles from anywhere. The resort has its own security staff. At least a third of the guests brought their own security teams to the wedding. On top of that, half the wedding guests work with Benson Security—one of the best security companies in the world. Do you really think, given all that information, that someone could waltz in and snatch us out from under their noses? Does that seem likely to you? I don’t think so. The only way it could have happened was if the people at the party were in on the kidnapping plot—ergo, fake kidnapping experience!”

He seemed to be grinding his teeth together, so she gave him another pat. She’d bet her next paycheque that her brother had boasted about his plan to John’s friends and they’d jumped at the idea to include him. Probably because John was late getting to the party. Surely his friends would have known he couldn’t cope with this sort of joke. She was going to give them a serious talking to once this experience was over.

“Don’t worry.” She patted him again. “I know what I’m doing. Just follow my lead. I don’t think they’re expecting expert level acting, anyway. In fact, we could totally ham this up. This is going to be fun.”

John opened his mouth, no doubt to argue further, but the door to the hut slammed inwards. A man stepped into the room. He had a lean and hungry look about him that told her he could be cruel and enjoy it. He wore grey jeans and a pale blue dress shirt that had large, dark patches of sweat under the arms. Tucked into his belt was a large machete. In his right hand he held a revolver, and in his left, he held a large mobile phone. Overgrown, greasy hair had been swept back from his forehead, and calculating, beady eyes considered them.

“Bueno, you’re awake. Now we talk business, no?”

With a smile that chilled her to the bone, he walked towards them.

Belinda stared at him in awe. Here was a man who really knew how to get into character. She could learn a lot from him. Maybe she’d get something out of being pranked after all.