Page 37 of Securing His Heart

Chris nodded and took a deep breath, embracing the moment. There was a chance that there was nothing going on and Lindy had knocked something off her desk. However, he couldn’t ignore the way his instincts were cautioning him that danger lurked. One thing he’d always been able to count on while on a mission was the way his body reacted to danger; it had never let him down.

He took a deep breath and centered his thoughts on the woman in the office he was about to go into and sent a short prayer to whoever was listening that this time, his instincts were off and there wasn’t any danger in Lindy’s office.

He crossed the threshold and paused; his prayers hadn’t been answered.

Chapter

Fourteen

Lindy’s breath caught in her throat, her heart thudding loudly against her ribs, as Chris entered her office. Every muscle in her body screamed at her to run into his arms. The knife pressed to her side, pushing through the fine silk of her blouse, kept her where she was. She already had a cut on her wrist from when she’d tried to escape the moment she’d been grabbed. The blood trickled down her hand, droplets falling to the carpet.

Ian, her trusted assistant, held her hostage, and the man he was helping was seated on the couch against the wall as if he was attending a Sunday picnic. As if holding someone at knife point was an everyday occurrence for him.

How had she never seen this side of him? How had her father never seen it?

Why was he doing this to her?

“Lindy, you okay.” Chris’s calm voice soothed her frazzled nerves a little. Chris was a former Delta, he had to have some sort of plan to get her out of this safely—at least she hoped he did.

“I’ve been better.”

I’m cracking jokes?

What the hell is wrong with me?

Better to joke than to scream and freak out like she wanted to.

“I can see that. Anyone want to tell me what’s going on?”

How could he be so casual when she had a knife digging into her? When she had blood leaking from her? Couldn’t he do some sort of sneaky Delta Force move that would have the knife taken from Ian’s hands before the guy could blink?

Where was Steve?

She met Chris’s gaze, practically willing him to help her, and he gave a slight nod, as if he could read her mind.

It didn’t make her feel any calmer. If anything, it ratcheted up her anxiety a few more levels until her flight instinct was going to take over.

“And you are?” Jonathon Buckley examined his nails, before looking in Chris’s direction. As if bored.

“A friend? Who are you?”

Her lover’s voice was mild, but Lindy could hear the steel beneath it. The don’t fuck with me asshole part that she imagined he used many a time while on a mission.

“This is Jonathon Buckley, Chairman of the Board. And he’s clearly not happy with me.” Defiance swept through Lindy. She was tired of everyone believing she was incapable of doing her job. She was damn good at it, and the fact it’d taken being held hostage for her to believe in herself, wasn’t lost on her.

If she’d been more forceful in her decisions and why she’d made them, then maybe she wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Then again, Jonathan had to have a reason for threatening her, or thinking ending her life was the way to go. Which really wasn’t because, while she may be out of the picture, the law would eventually catch up with him.

Why was he so against the decisions she’d made with regards to the company? He was Chairman of the Board, yes, he had some stock in the company, but her father had been the majority stockholder and all his shares passed to her when he’d died.

“What about Ian, why is he a part of this?” Chris had taken a couple of steps toward her, and the fact Ian hadn’t dug the knife in any deeper, was testament to Chris’s Delta skills.

“Ian is my stepson. He’s helping me, aren’t you son?”

“Yes.”

He was Jonathon’s stepson?