Bogota, Columbia, Two weeks later

I lost the baby, I lost the baby, I lost the baby.

That’s all you have to tell him, Tasha. Just look him in the eyes and lie to him. It doesn’t matter that it’ll break your heart to lie to him. It doesn’t matter that it’ll break your heart when you have to find a way to escape. It doesn’t matter that he’s treated you like you’re made of spun glass and he can’t seem to tear his eyes away. And oh, that look in his eyes. She’d waited years to see that look.

We can’t trust him, she thought, placing her hand over her belly.

She pulled her knees up against her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs and leaned against the headboard. She watched David intently while he prepared for work. He was sitting on the end of the bed, wearing fine black trousers that fit him perfectly. It looked like he was strapping a holster to his ankle. Her breath caught as she watched the powerful muscles in his back ripple when he moved. She wanted to ask him where he was going, but her mouth was too dry. He’d never worn such a thing at home. At the cabin.

He stood with his back to her and reached for a black shirt, pulling it over his broad, muscular shoulders. She tightened her body in on itself and hid her face on top of her knees, except for her watchful blue eyes, still peeking at him, as he buttoned it. Her dark hair curtained her expression of misery, but she knew he was in tune with her every emotion.

They had been in Bogota for two days now. He had left her locked in the hotel room each time, bringing food for them and then silently going to work on his laptop and his plans while she read or watched TV. She wasn’t sure how he managed to get them a room that she couldn’t escape from, but she hadn’t been able to get out. Not that she tried very hard. David had very matter-of-fact and calmly explained to her the dangers of wandering out alone in a region experiencing unrest. He told her in graphic detail what his shady connections in the city would do to her if she were to be discovered and captured. She’d listened with mild trepidation. But she wasn’t as naïve as he apparently thought.

If David had enemies that could find him so easily, wouldn’t they just follow him back to the hotel, discover his hidden wife and kidnap her more easily? No, David was trying to frighten her into staying put.

The main reason she was okay to stay put was that she wasn’t ready to leave. She supposed she was still stunned by the events of two weeks ago. Of waking up in David’s arms alive. The tender care he’d shown her was more heart-wrenching than anything she could have imagined. How could the cold man before her now, the man strapping guns into holsters under his arms, preparing to mete out death to strangers, have held her in his arms with such tenderness?

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, blocking out David as he pulled on his suit jacket, covering his weapons. She turned her head so when she opened her eyes she was looking out the windows into the clear sunny skies of a bright Columbian afternoon. They were on the twelfth floor of the hotel with a fantastic view of the city. Tasha had spent many hours gazing out the window, watching people and cars going about their business. It helped distract her thoughts. Helped keep her from doing what she knew she must. Formulate an escape plan.

Tears clogged her throat at the thought. God, the last thing she wanted to do was leave David. The past few weeks had only grown her love for her enigmatic husband. He had catered to her every wish, though she hadn’t voiced a single one. His solicitousness after she’d woken on the floor of the cabin had bordered on smothering. Except as soon as he’d sensed her need for space, he’d backed off. He’d held her in the night when she’d woken with nightmares of being trapped in a drowning coffin. He’d paced the floor outside the washroom door when she’d showered over and over again because she couldn’t warm up.

He’d stood silently when she’d raged at him and blamed him for putting them in that position and then held her close when she’d collapsed in a sobbing heap, begging his forgiveness and then blaming herself for putting them in that position. He had been her quiet strength when she’d fallen apart from the trauma of not only going into the lake, but of a two-year separation that she thought would inevitably end in her death. But had actually ended in sweet capture.

He’d sat quietly in the corner of her studio when she’d recovered enough to dance once more. He’d watched silently, like a dark, brooding shadow as she’d queued her music and spun into dance. She didn’t push herself. Not like the day she’d crashed into the lake. She danced like a wraith. Like a shadow of the star she’d once been. A weak imitation. Not for one more moment would she risk her baby. The baby that clung so strongly to life, no matter how hard it’s mama and papa had tried to kill it with their recklessness.

Only once had he stopped her. She’d been mid-leap, arms extended, eyes closed, lost in her own world. She landed, opened her eyes… and cried out in surprise. He was no longer in the corner, but standing in front of her. She stopped abruptly before she crashed. Bon Iver’s “Holocene” filled the room with soft music. David closed the space between them. She had fought not to step away from the intense energy buzzing around him. He brought his hand up slowly and pressed it against her stomach, spreading his fingers until he touched her from hipbone to hipbone. She had gasped, the sound drifting in the music. His eyes bored into hers – dark emotions swirling in their depths.

She’d understood what the moment meant to him. Though he hadn’t said a word. Simply touched her, his gaze speaking for him. He’d been telling her their child was safe with him. That he wouldn’t take it from her as he’d threatened. Tears had filled her eyes and she’d been tempted to throw herself in his arms. To break down and thank him for relenting. But she hadn’t. A new kind of reserve had permeated their relationship since he’d pulled her from the frozen lake. A kind of distance that had never existed between them before. She knew it existed within her own breast, not his. Though she loved him more now than ever, owed him more for saving her life, it was like his threat against their baby had killed something within her. And he knew it.

He hadn’t pressured her for sex. Though, physically, she was obviously able to go to bed with him if she was able to dance. She hadn’t made any moves in that direction. Her own libido seemed to have died on the bottom of the lake. She simply couldn’t welcome her husband into her body. She didn’t trust him. His very actions were proving that she couldn’t trust him. She was to be locked in a hotel room while he…

His body filled her vision as he stepped in front of the window. Her eyes wandered up, taking in the superb cut of his suit. She had watched the placement of each of his weapons with mounting fear for his safety. What if he didn’t come back? He had said to her, in his business, it was kill or be killed. What if today was that day?

“I will be back, Natasha,” he said in a deep voice, as though reading her thoughts.

She nodded, her eyes sorrowful. “You must go,” she whispered. She had meant to say, must you go?

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You’ll kill someone,” she said, acknowledging his existence without the spark of challenge that would have once been there. She just wanted him to come home to her.

He didn’t say anything. Just watched her for a moment with dark, emotionless eyes. Then he turned to leave. He made it to the door before she forced her frozen limbs to uncoil and her vocal chords to work. She would never forgive herself if she let her husband go to his death without a kind word from his wife.

“David!” she called, rolling onto her knees, hands on the bed in front of her.

He stopped in the door without looking back. He looked impeccable, every hair in place as always. Power and control radiated from him like a cloak. She wanted to throw herself at him and beg him to take her with him. She knew she could never stop him from his course of action, but maybe if she went with him she could keep him safe. Like a good luck charm. His dancing ballerina.

“Please be safe, moy muzh.” She forced the words through a throat thick with tears.

He jerked his head in a nod, stepped through the door and closed it. She heard the lock engage and knew she would be trapped in the room once more. Curling onto her side, she allowed the tears to fall as she imagined every terrible thing that could befall her husband in the next several hours.