I’d been with other men. But none of them had ever been like Lucien.
What was it about him that had gotten under my skin so quickly? What was it that made me want him as desperately as I did? What made me allow him to touch me when I knew it was all an act on his part? What had made me need to prove to him that I believed he was as much a man as any I’d served with in Afghanistan?
He’d asked me that night. He was diabetic and had a low blood sugar that made him shaky, that left him struggling. And he asked me:
“Does it make me weak in your eyes?”
“What?” I was startled. I didn’t know what to say.
“Does it make me weak? Less of a man?”
“I… No, it doesn’t. But you should have told me.”
“Why? Some women think it’s a weakness. An infirmity. Like I’m not really a man because I have a chronic illness that can knock me flat on my ass at any moment. Do you think that?”
I didn’t know what to say. I thought about a man I’d served with who lost his leg and refused to allow his wife to see him. I told him the loss of his leg didn’t make him less of a man. And I told Lucien basically the same thing.
“If you think this makes you less of a man, then your definition of masculinity and mine are two very different things.”
And that’s when everything changed between us.
Lucien had always been seen as weak in the eyes of the women in his life. And I’d always been seen as too tough in the eyes of the men in my life. Together we finally found an equal, someone who understood. We were a perfect match.
If only we could find each other again. If only he could find me before this ended the way I was afraid it would.
I had no control. I was pretty sure my kidnapper was quickly losing control, too. And that was not good.
Someone had to be in control.
Chapter 29
Lucien
The building was quiet. It was well after five now, and most of the employees were gone for the day. The labs would still be humming, but those were in the basement. Sergio and I made our way up to the executive floor, where my office was. Ruben was there with a couple more goons, staring as a tall, thin man worked at my computer.
“What’s going on?”
Ruben didn’t even look up.
Sergio went to one of the other men and bumped fists. They whispered to each other for a moment, but Sergio didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to tell me what was going on. He stepped back and stood in the doorway with his arms behind his back.
“What’s going on?” I repeated.
“If you’d give us a second,” Ruben finally said, “you might actually find out.”
I glanced at the couch, thinking about the first time Adrienne had been up here. I’d explained to her how the company worked and who might be behind the leak. I remembered her watching me as I explained it all, the way she crossed her legs, the way she scratched at her brow. I remembered thinking I’d like to be doing something other than talking about business with a woman who looked like that. I also remembered how awkward she’d been with the clothes that were clearly new and the little purse that kept grabbing onto her cellphone, making it impossible for her to pull it out with anything like sophistication. I’d nearly laughed that first time when it caught on the lining of the purse.
I’d never make it as a woman. And Adrienne… She was so beautiful, she didn’t need all those trappings to make her femininity obvious.
I wished she was here now. I wished she was sitting on that couch, watching all this hub bub with the same look of amusement in her eyes she’d had that day.
Where the hell was she?
“There!”
The man behind the computer suddenly looked up and pointed across the room. Ruben quickly crossed to a bookshelf that sat just off of the door, running his fingers over books and along keepsakes I had set there. He found what he wanted about halfway down, tucked into a corner.
“What is that?”
Ruben turned and held up a tiny tube-like object for me to see.
“A camera. Adrienne set up a camera in here.”
“A camera? Why?”
“To catch whoever was sending those emails from your computer,” the man at my desk said. He studied me a minute, then slowly stood and awkwardly came over to me, sticking his hand out. “I’m Robert, by the way. I don’t know if Adrienne ever mentioned me, but I’m Ruben’s tech guy.”
I nodded as I shook his head. “She mentioned you helped figure out where the emails were coming from.”
He smiled widely, like a child who’d just been given the best compliment ever. “I was the one who did that. She mentioned me?”