He released me from his grip, taking a step away as his gaze shifted to the water. “Take as long as you need out here, Danielle. Make peace with your new reality, because you will never leave this island.”
28
A fter Kai left me, I sat down on the end of the jetty and dangled my feet over the edge. I had no need to “make peace with my new reality” as he had so very dramatically put it, because I had no intention of remaining on his island any longer than I needed to carry out my assignment.
The fact that he thought he could keep me gave me confidence that my deception was flawless thus far. It was the homestretch now, and this was the part I was best at.
After a while sitting there and listening to the gentle lap of water on the shore, and watching the sun rise on the horizon, I slowly retraced my steps back up to the house.
Everything was still dead silent as I made my way back to the master suite, and I peered around to add to my mental floor plan. As my fingers closed over the handle to Kai’s bedroom, an odd rush of apprehension washed over me. Nervousness.
Was I in over my head on this?
No. Fuck no. Just because of that one slipup with the comms device—which I hated using anyway—didn’t mean I was out of my league. But goddamn if Leon’s warnings didn’t keep repeating in my head as I opened that door. His utter conviction that this was a suicide mission… that no one expected me to come out of this alive.
Why? What did he know about Kai, or about Ares , that he hadn’t told me? I’d so quickly dismissed his warnings as being a lack of faith in my skill. But what if it had nothing to do with my abilities at all, and everything to do with Kai?
Shit. Was Kai playing me right back?
He wasn’t back in bed, but the water was running in the bathroom, so it wasn’t hard to guess where he was. My pulse raced in a way I hadn’t experienced in a long freaking time when I crossed the room and pushed open the bathroom door. Not because he was naked in the shower and I was quietly drooling over his body. But because I was no longer so confident in my own deception.
What did it say about me that I was suddenly a thousand times more interested in the infamous Ares, now that I’d considered he might be playing me at my own game?
“See something you like, Danielle?” he purred seductively from the glass-walled shower. It was steamed up enough that the finer details were obscured, but I’d already been up close and personal with his dick, and it was safe to say hell yes, I liked what I’d seen.
Instead, I folded my arms and gave him a petulant, resentful glare. “Am I supposed to starve to death, or should I expect rations to be slipped under the door sometime soon?”
I wasn’t even that hungry but needed a distraction away from what I really wanted to do. Shower. With him. And get all kinds of dirty.
Kai swiped a hand over the foggy shower glass and met my eyes across the bathroom. Regardless of whether he knew what I was thinking, the invitation was clear in the curve of his lips and tilt of his head.
“You sure you don’t need to take a shower first? You’ve been sitting down there on the dock a long time.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m quite sure. So, what’s a prisoner got to do to get a coffee around here?” His smirk spread wider, and I threw my hands up. “Forget it, I’ll find it myself. Or am I not permitted to leave the room?”
My only response was his laughter. He’d only so recently told me that I was his prisoner, never to leave the island we were on… and he was laughing ? Holy shit, Malachi Arden might be more messed up in the head than I was.
Also, his laugh was incredible. Like sex coated in chocolate with a side of vodka.
I needed to swipe a hand over my face after I retreated out of the bathroom. The dull ache in my cheek gave me a little clarity, so I gave it a deliberate poke to wash away the lingering lust Kai seemed to stir up in me.
“Get your head in the game,” I muttered to myself. “This man is your captor. He had a sweet, innocent bank teller tortured and hasn’t even so much as apologized for it. He’s either playing a game, or he’s a bigger asshole than he first seemed.” Which sounded impossible, and yet here we were.
Either way, I needed to quit thinking with my clit. He needed to earn fake-Danny’s forgiveness, so there better be some groveling or grand gestures soon. If he really thought it’d be as easy as a weirdly romantic yet threatening story on the dock, then some suggestive glances… well, then I needed to work on being less fucking obvious.
I used the short walk from Kai’s suite down to the kitchen to reflect on my character. On the role I was playing here. I’d been letting her slip a little, letting a bit too much of me show through when I interacted with Kai. He was short-circuiting my brain a little, and I was going to blame that hot encounter with his gun.
It wasn’t hard to locate a coffee machine in the enormous kitchen, and I fired it up. It’d been way too long since my last cup of coffee, and it was a miracle I managed not to kill anyone in a caffeine-withdrawal rage.
The soft scuff of feet on floorboards alerted me to someone approaching just a moment before they entered the kitchen.
“Oh, Danny,” Moana said with a small gasp, “I didn’t expect to see you—”
“Out of my cage?” I sneered, looking over at her with accusation in my eyes. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Her brow creased and her eyes studied my bruised face. “I was going to say awake so early . I already knew you weren’t locked up.” She came closer, hugging her oversized hoodie around herself. “You look like crap, Danny. That must hurt.”
There was nothing menacing in her voice. She sounded… guilty. Apologetic. Maybe Jae hadn’t been the only one pleading my innocence case to Kai after all. Fake-Danny, the one who is scared and hurt, she would be furious at Mo for letting them do this, though. I couldn’t soften toward her too quickly, or it’d be suspicious.
“Not at all,” I replied with heavy sarcasm. “I can barely feel it.”
Her lips tilted in a half smile. “Funny. I’ll get you some arnica cream if you make me a coffee too?”
She was trying to mend bridges, that much was clear, and if I did end up stuck in this house for a while—even if it was for another week—then I might need an ally who didn’t want to sleep with me. So I gave a small nod of acceptance, and she pulled an enormous box of medical supplies from the pantry.
I made coffee for both of us while she sorted through what seemed to be Mary Poppins’s bag of first aid, then pulled out a little brown jar. She indicated for me to come closer and opened the jar to swipe out some of the cream on her finger.
Playing nervous, I eyed the cream suspiciously despite already knowing what arnica was.
“This will help the bruising go down about seventy-five times faster than if you let nature take its course,” Mo told me as she reached out to gently rub it into my face.
I flinched and winced as she worked, but in reality, her touch was featherlight and felt kind of amazing working the herbal cream into my bruise. “Is that the medically proven result?” I murmured with an edge of amusement.
She gave a small eye roll. “It’s the Moana Arden proven result, and that’s as good as fact. I’m guessing you have more bruises than just this one?” She took my wrist without me offering it and carefully dabbed the cream on the purple skin around each puncture site. Her lips tightened as she worked, but she didn’t comment.