He’s silent for several seconds. “I’m awake now. Get some rest.”
I lift my head from his shoulder and take in his shadowed features. Indeed, he appears fully awake now. Any vulnerability from the dream has fallen away.
I inch my palm up, resting it over his heart. Its rapid beats don’t match his measured breaths or guarded expression. If only I could reach into this man and find the lover I once knew. What would it be like to escape into the deep, haunting bliss of our bodies finding perfect harmony?
His shadowed gaze offers no consolation, no promise that he’ll ever be more than the kind of man who can tie me to a bed and leave me screaming for help without a second thought. Yet having him near—blood and heat and his inexplicable intensity humming against my skin, searing me despite our clothes—is both the answer to a prayer and the beginning of what I fear could become a nightmare worse than his disappearance.
I withdraw my touch and turn from him. Far enough so I can no longer feel his heat. I close my eyes and hug my pillow. Wanting anything more from him is dangerous. In less than twenty-four hours, he’s simultaneously turned my world upside down and ripped me from it. I need answers. I need rest. God knows what tomorrow will bring.
The sound of the shower running wakes me. I blink against the late morning sunrays blasting through the barred window. This isn’t a dream. I’m still in Mateus’s home, which means Tristan is in the adjoining bathroom.
I’m furious to find that he’s bound one of my wrists to the bed. I survey the room, wondering where he keeps his stash of zip ties. I kick the sheets and prepare to start screaming my head off again, when my foot touches something cool and hard on the side where Tristan slept. I grasp it with my toes enough to draw it into view. It’s the pocket knife he used to release me from the ties last night. He must have forgotten about it in the moments after.
I nudge it up the bed a few inches at a time.
Water crashes in the shower, competing with the loud drumming of my heart in my ears. Every second that passes seems perilous, knowing Tristan could return before I have a chance to cut myself free.
I twist and maneuver until I can reach it. Finally I’m able to unlatch the blade. The simple act releases a shot of adrenaline to my system. The hit is so strong, I can hardly think through what I need to do next.
I’m trembling but manage to cut the thick plastic zip tie. I roll off the bed swiftly, my muscles charged and my head buzzing. With the weapon in my hand, I have options I never had before.
Tristan is only a few steps away. The man I never stopped loving. The stranger he’s become.
I’m at war with his contradicting interactions with me. His unexpected tenderness mixed with his unforgiving tones and domineering behavior. But this could be my only chance to break free during daylight.
All I can do is act. Run.
I put on my shoes and grab my backpack. I quietly exit the bedroom. My heart hammers in my chest anticipating Tristan’s reaction when he finds out I’m gone. Will he try to find me? Somehow I already know he will. But for how long?
The more pressing question is how the hell I’ll get out of Mateus’s compound. I reach the front door and remember the armed guards who manned the gates down the path. I know nothing about this place or Tristan’s so-called friend, but I’m guessing leaving undetected may not be as straightforward as waltzing out the front door.
All too aware of the dwindling moments before Tristan discovers I’m missing, I venture into other rooms of the house. The foyer opens into a sitting room with several accent chairs around a coffee table. I walk along a wall of bookshelves without making a sound. I peek through a doorway into a kitchen decorated with hand-painted tiles. Karina’s back is to me as she chops food facing the farthest wall.
I step back into the sitting room and consider the double doors that open to the back of the property. Carefully I slide open the door, step onto the patio, and glance around. The gardens behind the house are vast, lush, and mercifully empty of people. I move quickly, eager to reach the perimeter of the property, when a familiar voice stops me.
“Isabel. It that you?”
Panic seizes my breath. I turn my head. Mateus is coming toward me from some hidden place in the gardens. He doesn’t rush. His gait is casual and comfortable, as if all of this is perfectly normal. Tristan’s knife is hidden in my fist. I ready myself to use it, an anxious tremble taking over my limbs once more.
But as Mateus slows before me, his countenance is so easy and warm, I can’t help but relax a little. I exhale shakily. Maybe he can help. Maybe he could be a friend…
“Isabel. Where are you running to?”
“I have to leave.” I try to keep my tone even and calm. Like I’m not a prisoner on the run. Like I’m a free woman with the right to come and go as I wish. I fear I’m anything but.
He assesses me quickly, his eyes lighting on my backpack slung over my shoulder and then my closed fist.
“Where is Tristan?”
His tone doesn’t change. But in his question lies another… Does he know you’re trying to leave?
I shake my head. “Please. Just let me go.”
His gaze drops again to my closed fist. “What have you got there?”
I swallow hard. I grip the knife tight again, but my palms are so slick with sweat, it slips from my grasp, rattling on the pebbled stone patio.
I curse my foible as Mateus bends to retrieve the knife. Straightening, he rolls it around in his palm, eyeing it carefully.
“Is this yours?”
I clench my jaw and lower my voice. “It’s Tristan’s.” I pause a moment. “Can you help me leave?”
His gaze is like a tractor beam on me, full of knowing. Not unkind. A hint of compassion, maybe a touch of humor, but nothing that tells me he’ll help.
“You may already know that Tristan is a very dangerous man. He’s also my friend. I would never betray him.”
“But he’s keeping me prisoner here.” I can barely contain the outrage in my voice. No one’s been able to hold me against my will since… I clamp my eyes closed and reason that the emotional prison of my youth is nothing like the situation in which I now find myself.
“I keep my treasures locked away as well. You must be very important to him.”
“He doesn’t seem to think so.”
The humor flees Mateus’s features. “He does, Isabel. You are a miracle. The key—”
“To his memories. I know.” I toss up my hand and try to ignore the burn of the truth.
“It hurts you,” he says with a cadence that feels like a direct hit, “that he doesn’t remember you.”
“How could it not?”
“Do you think you can get him to remember again?”
I shrug. “I have no idea.”
He gazes at me silently, as if in challenge. I’ve been so busy making sense of our mad dash from the city and his odd confession that I’ve hardly considered the possibility. Could I really make Tristan remember what he’s lost? Could I possibly have that much power?
“Isabel! Where are you?”
I jolt back at the sound of Tristan’s voice bellowing through the house.
Precious seconds pass, and then he’s at the sliding door. He looks around the garden but doesn’t notice us right away.
“Right here, friend,” Mateus says loudly but with that even quality he possesses that seems to lull one into believing everything is as it should be.