Desperate Domination (Bought by the Billionaire #3) (13 page)

“After care?” Her brow furrowed.

“It’s when I help you transition out of the scene. No more power exchange, no more game, just me telling you how beautiful and perfect you are and how much I love you.”

Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat, but he gave no sign that something momentous had been said. He only leaned down to kiss her forehead and whispered, “I’m going to go run you a bath. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just relax.”

“Okay,” she said, sucking her lips between her teeth until he’d crossed the room and disappeared into the bathroom. Only when he was out of sight did she allow her smile to burst wide open like a firework exploding across the sky.

He loved her. He
loved
her!

She’d felt love in his touch for weeks, seen it in his eyes when she looked up to find him watching her while she read or gathered pretty shells from the beach, but to hear it…

To hear it was pure magic. The trembling at the center of her bones was banished by a giddy rush of happiness and gratitude so intense she wanted to run naked through the garden, howling her delight up at the moon. Instead, she rolled over onto her stomach and pressed her face into the mattress to muffle her squeal of celebration.

He loved her! He loved her!

The three words thrummed through her head like some mystical tattoo, filling her with strength. She bounced off the bed, carried across the room by an adrenaline rush so strong it felt like her heart was going to burst through her chest. She danced around the table where Eva laid their breakfast each morning and spun in a circle with her arms held out wide, coming to a stop facing the door.

If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have seen that the door was cracked or that someone stood on the other side.

Her hands flew to cover as much of her nakedness as she could—one arm across her breasts and one hand darting down to shield her sex—as she backed away. She was about to call for Jackson when Adam stepped into the room, holding a phone out in front of him.

“Dominic sent me.” He kept his eyes on the floor, making it clear he wasn’t interested in her nudity. “You have to leave now. A helicopter landed on the other side of the island. The men sent to kill you will be here within the hour.”

“I have to tell Jackson,” Hannah said, her adrenaline rush transforming to a frantic, hunted feeling. “He has to come too.”

“He’s the reason they found you. Look at his messages,” Adam said, gesturing for her to take the phone.

Dread flooded through her, transforming her stomach into a hard knot. With a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure that the entrance to the bathroom was still empty, she took the phone. It didn’t take long to see what Jackson had done, but she still didn’t want to believe.

She didn’t want to believe that he’d lied to her or betrayed her trust and she really didn’t want to believe he’d done something like this. But the proof was right there in the two final messages.

The first was a question from someone called Titan beneath a photograph of a woman Hannah never thought she’d see again. It was Harley, older, with her hair bleached blond and sadness tightening her features, but Harley, no doubt in her mind.

She knew her sister was alive even before she read the message confirming her suspicion—

I’ve tracked Harley Mason—now Baudin—to a small village in southern France. I.D. is 100% certain via image and DNA analysis. How do I proceed?

The last text was a response from Jackson—

Kill her.

The phone clattered to the floor and a sound rose in her throat—half cry of shock, half wail of grief—but she stifled it with a fist pressed tightly to her mouth.

“Hannah? Are you all right?” Jackson called over the sound of the bathwater.

“I’m fine,” she called back, but she was anything but fine.

Her sister was alive.
Alive
. But maybe not for much longer.

Because Jackson had given the order to kill her. To kill a member of her family, her
sister
. All his talk about loving her and not wanting to hurt her had been a lie. He was a liar and a killer and she’d been a fool to let herself believe anything else.

The realization made her feel like her heart was being ripped out of her chest, but there was no time to grieve the death of the man she’d thought Jackson was, not if she wanted to leave the island alive. Heart racing, she spun and hurried to the closet, grabbing the first dress she laid hands on and pulling it over her head as she crossed back to Adam.

“Let’s go,” she whispered. “He’ll be out any second.”

Adam nodded and motioned for her to lead the way. “There’s a golf cart out front. I’ve disabled the car and the other carts. He won’t be able to follow us except on foot.”

Hannah broke into a run in her bare feet, racing silently through the house and out the front door. Outside, the world brooded in an ominous bluish-yellow light, the sickly moon hanging in the sky coloring everything in shades of ugly. It was a night for death and betrayal, but she was going to escape. She would get off this island, away from Jackson, and she would find some way to save her sister’s life.

Harley might be a monster, but she was
her
monster, and she didn’t deserve a death sentence.

“Hold on.” Adam slid onto the golf cart seat beside her. Hannah gripped the metal bar on her right, squeezing tight as the wheels churned through the gravel and the cart zoomed away down the road.

The house was nearly out of sight when she heard Jackson roar her name. “Hannah! Hannah!”

Tears filling her eyes, she set her jaw and kept her eyes on the road in front of her. There was nothing to gain from looking back.

She had nothing else to say to Jackson Hawke. Not even goodbye.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jackson

As soon as he emerged from the bathroom, Jackson knew something was wrong. The sheets were empty and his cell was lying on the floor halfway between the bed and the door.

Stomach clenching, he quickly crossed the room, his pajama pants whispering ominously in the silence. Whatever this was about, it wasn’t good. He’d deliberately left his phone in his room when he’d come to bed, not wanting to risk Hannah seeing something she shouldn’t.

At least not yet.

If the Titan agency’s trip to southern France proved fruitful—if Harley truly was alive and in hiding—then he would tell Hannah what the detectives had uncovered. Until then, there was no point in upsetting her. Or in getting her hopes up.

Hannah hated what Harley had done to him, but the woman was her twin. They shared a bond and Hannah still loved her. No matter how many crimes Harley had committed, Hannah would be thrilled to learn she still had a sister.

He knew there might come a time when he would have to choose between his love for Hannah and his hate for Harley. He also knew that, if that time came, the choice had already been made.

Hannah was all that mattered. She was his heart and soul and the reason he’d returned from the dead. Before her, he might as well have been six feet under. He’d deluded himself into thinking his life had purpose, but a lust for vengeance wasn’t purpose, it was a disease that ate away at your soul, leaving you blind. Before Hannah, his existence had been solid darkness. She’d brought him back to the light and reminded him that there were a hundred thousand things in the world more important than revenge.

There was her smile and her kiss and the way she touched him first thing in the morning, with that hint of hesitation, as if he were a beautiful dream she couldn’t quite believe was real. There was her laugh and her sweet spirit and the way she gave herself entirely into his keeping. Her trust humbled him, her heart transformed him, and her happiness was the only thing that mattered.

She
was all that mattered and now she was gone. He knew it the moment he picked up the phone.

His conversation with the Titan group was pulled up on the screen, including two new texts. One that confirmed Harley Mason was still alive and a second that issued a kill order, an order he sure as hell hadn’t given.

“Hannah!” Jackson dropped the phone and ran, his bare feet slapping on the cool wood floor as he hurried through the darkened house, his heart in his throat and the terrible certainty that Hannah was in danger crawling across his skin.

He emerged into the soft humidity in time to hear a golf cart puttering away from the house.

“Hannah! Hannah!” He screamed her name as loud as he could, but there was no answer. By the time he fell silent, the soft rumble of the cart’s engine had faded and there was only the wind, shushing through the palm leaves.

Fighting the urge to chase after her in his bare feet, he sprinted to where the car was parked beneath a wide overhang near the entrance to the kitchen, but a glance at the slashed tires was all it took to assure him he wouldn’t be getting anywhere in the Cadillac. Cursing, he cut across the grass to where the other golf carts were parked in the equipment shed.

He was halfway to the staff cottages when he heard a woman cry out, followed by a rapid stream of Spanish.

Shifting direction, he circled around Eva’s bungalow. On the other side, he saw the cook sitting on the ground in the soft pool of light from the bulb above her door, cradling her son’s bloodied head in her lap.

“Mr. Hawke,” she said, reaching a hand toward him. “We need a doctor. Please, we have to get Dominic to a doctor.”

“I don’t need a doctor, Mama.” Dominic sat up with a groan, gently pushing his mother’s hands away. “Head wounds bleed a lot. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

He turned to Jackson, body weaving slightly as he pressed one palm to the flowing wound near his hairline. “Adam’s not who you think he is, Mr. Hawke. I believe he means to hurt Hannah. We need to put a guard—”

“Hannah’s gone, but I think I know where she went. I heard a golf cart leaving the property,” Jackson said, hands balling into fists and the need to run after her becoming almost irresistible. “Tell me what happened. Quickly.”

“I was coming to check on my mother,” Dominic said, swallowing hard. “Adam stopped me before I could knock on the door. He said he knew I’d been hired to keep Hannah safe, but that I was going to fail. We struggled. I was close to taking him, but he’s working with someone. I was hit on the head from behind and didn’t come to until a few minutes ago.”

At least two men, Jackson mentally catalogued. At least two men he had to destroy before they hurt Hannah. That was all that mattered. He could grill Dominic on the rest of his story—especially that part about being hired to protect Hannah—at a later date.

“Stay here,” Jackson ordered. “Watch the house. If she comes back detain her somewhere safe until I get back.”

“Take my gun.” Dominic reached down, pulling a small revolver from a holster hidden beneath his jeans. “If Hannah is still alive, she might not be for long. I believe these men were sent to kill her. If you get a clear shot at them, take it.”

Jackson’s throat threatened to close as he took the gun and quickly checked to make sure it was loaded. “I don’t have time
not
to trust you right now, Dominic. But if you’ve kept something from me and it leads to Hannah being hurt…”

“I want to keep her safe,” the shorter man said. “I swear it.”

“For your sake, I hope that’s the truth.” Without another word, Jackson hurried on to the equipment shed only to find the remaining golf cart had been tampered with. Given thirty minutes with a few wiring tools, he knew he could correct the problem, but he didn’t have thirty minutes and neither did Hannah.

Abandoning the shed, he ran back toward the main house. Underneath the lanai, where the beach chairs and umbrellas were stored, sat two lightly rusted bikes. Shoving the gun in the back of his pants, he grabbed the larger of the two, swung onto the seat, and began pumping hard down the road leading away from the estate.

Years of pushing his body to the breaking point had given him thigh muscles of pure steel. He could bike around this entire island twice before he gave out. He would be able to catch up with the cart, and when he did, he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot first and ask questions later. The men in front of him had given up their right to mercy when they’d laid hands on the woman he loved.

He loved her. He loved her so much, but he’d only said the words once.

He wanted to say them a hundred more times, a thousand. He needed Hannah safe in his arms more than he needed his next breath and by the time he reached the fork in the road and turned instinctively toward the airfield, his heart was threatening to punch a hole through his ribs.

He’d tested the edge of his endurance nearly every day of his adult life, but terror had never been a part of his daily runs or workouts. After he’d been released from prison, he’d assumed he was immune to this kind of fear—a man without a soul doesn’t have much to be afraid of—but that was before Hannah. Before her love and before she’d given him something priceless to lose.

He swore beneath his breath, jaw clenching as he pumped even harder.

He told himself the rumble he heard wasn’t a plane engine purring to life. Then he told himself that he would reach the field in time to stop the plane from taking off. But he knew he was grasping at straws, knew it even before he saw an unfamiliar aircraft lift into the sky, flying low over his head as he leapt from the bike near the airfield’s entrance.