Page 23 of Captured

Dimitri shrugged. “Shortcut. We get out here.”

He didn’t wait for her to answer but got out of the truck. For a moment, however, Lauren froze. She had no phone. She had no money. She had nothing to wear but the clothes on her back, and no one to trust but this brute of a bodyguard who listened to absolutely nothing she said, despite the fact that she was the one speaking reason and he was the one hustling her into a boat to go God only knew where.

“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done,” she muttered as Dimitri jerked the door open and reached up a brawny hand for hers.

“Let’s get moving, princess,” he growled.

Fourteen

Dimitri checked the controls over the captain’s shoulder, nodding with satisfaction. Lauren was standing on the deck, rigid and in control, but at least she’d accepted a large, heavy blanket to ward against the shock he knew was going to hit her sometime very soon. The fact that she remained upright was in her favor. The fact that she was breathing steadily, her eyes clear, her chin high, was too.

Then again, maybe nothing fazed the woman. He didn’t know her, not really. He didn’t want to know her.

Not really.

Dimitri refocused on the electronics in front of him. As expected, there’d been no communications from the party. With any luck, everyone was still in turmoil, searching the grounds. He’d covered a good three miles in the fifteen minutes they’d spent in the golf cart, and his truck had eaten up the terrain since then.

Both would have been cleared away by his team already, so there was nothing there to find. Lauren would have been declared an on-foot escapee, and the search would extend to neighboring homes. The royal family would be in an outrage, her parents panicked, that slimy bastard Smithson furious.

The boat was looking better and better all the time.

He thanked the captain, asked a few questions. This was a good plan, a solid plan. It would give him the time he needed to ensure the safety of the woman while maintaining deniability for the family. Excellent.

Satisfied, he moved back out on the deck with Lauren. The mini yacht was owned by Theodopolis Papalia, but he was in New Zealand right now, and he’d long since lent the craft out to the ONSF to help with the recovery of plane fragments from Ari’s fatal crash.

Ari. As usual in the months since the crash, Dimitri cast his glance to the sky, thinking of his friend. He hadn’t forgiven the prince for flying off so foolishly into a storm. He still couldn’t quite accept that Ari was dead. If he was, though, then when Dimitri finally tracked Ari down amid the mists of Olympus, he fully planned to beat the shit out of him.

Lauren half turned as he approached. “Where are we going?”

“Island a few miles out to sea. It’s called Miranos. I suspect you haven’t heard of it.”

She frowned. “Fishing ports, right? Villages. Town. Whatever. Not a tourist destination.”

Dimitri settled in beside her, trying not to smile. “Everywhere in the Aegean is a tourist destination these days. Miranos has long made its money by fishing, but it’s become a popular location for divers. It’s rustic, but it’s clean. Good people, good food. You’ll be safe until we figure out how to proceed.”

“This is such a mess,” she sighed. “I don’t know whether to thank you or scream at you.”

“Be a shame to scare the fish.”

“I guess.” She seemed fragile suddenly, wrapped up in her blanket, and he edged toward her. He’d dealt with his share of frightened people going into shock. That was part of the workthey did along the border, ensuring the safety of the villagers from marauding bands that snuck into their country. Usually, they reached those villages in time. Sometimes they didn’t.

Fear was something he knew, understood. And it wafted off the blonde now in little fits and gasps, as if she was trying to control even this.

Still, she didn’t move away from him. And that was progress. Without asking, he put his arms around her, pulling her back to his chest, squeezing her close through the thick woven blanket. She let him do it, which was more a testament to her frame of mind than anything.

Nevertheless, something about her actions seemed wrong to him, off-putting. He couldn’t quite figure it out. It was as if she was acting the role of the exhausted celebutante, knowing she should submit and so submitting in exactly the right way, when he knew damned well that she legitimately was exhausted, wrung out. What was he missing?

Her soft sigh recalled him. “I get the feeling this isn’t exactly how Emmaline and Kristos spent their time out of the media spotlight, huh?”

He laughed. “Not exactly. But you’ll be safe.”

“I was safe before.” But she said the words automatically, as if she’d been telling them to herself for so long, she wasn’t sure what else to say.

He decided to push for more. “What exactly was in the boxes this man sent to you when you were younger?”

“Gifts, mostly.” She leaned against him a bit more heavily, and he welcomed the warmth of her, the light scent of her shampoo and perfume mixing with the salty air. “Jewelry, books, electronics sometimes. And about every third or fourth time, sometimes less, sometimes more, there’d be something that wasn’t a gift. The empty box trick he definitely pulled a few times. But then there were...dead things, too.”

“Dead things.”