Deep Domination (Bought by the Billionaire #2) (3 page)

But he was too angry with himself to pause to register anything good.

He’d come so close to losing it. The first time Harley threw him a curve ball, he’d nearly broken all the promises he’d made to himself.

A smile. A fucking
smile
was all it had taken to set him back to dancing when she tugged his strings. He’d had six years to prepare and she’d nearly broken him two hours in.

But she didn’t. You didn’t let anger take control. And now you’re prepared.

Now, you know better than to think this will be easy.

His thoughts slowed his racing pulse, but he didn’t slow his pace toward the front of the house. He kept walking until he was striding down the wooden steps leading up to the lanai and down the gravel trail leading toward the sea. He needed to be alone with nothing but the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. He needed to stare at the place where rocks became sand and remember that steady and relentless wins out in the end.

Rocks may seem more durable than water. But the waves washing in and out, lapping away at stone year after year, eventually wear the largest rocks to pebbles, then to sand, and then to particles so small they might as well not exist at all. He didn’t have years, but Harley wasn’t a rock. She was slippery and quick, but she wasn’t strong. A strong woman wouldn’t need to lie, deceive, and shape shift the way she did. Deprived of her usual tools, she would begin to break down much faster than a stone losing its battle against the sea.

He just needed to maintain his focus and keep from getting swept up in any game but his own.

He reached the end of the road where gravel gave way to sand and stood watching the tide come in, the sea air whipping his hair from his face and filling his ears with the meditative rush of wind and waves.

The owners of the property warned their renters that the ocean on this side of the island was dangerous. The shore break was brutal, with waves that slammed into the steep incline where beach gave way to ocean with the force of a wrecking ball.

Even from a few dozen feet away, Jackson could feel the earth vibrating beneath his feet each time the ocean found its target. The first few feet of shoreline was pock-marked and jagged from the constant assault, but the sand farther up the beach remained untouched. It was mounded in peaceful dunes not found elsewhere on the island, where a gradual incline allowed the ocean to creep higher up the shore.

Brutality had its place, but its reach was limited and Jackson didn’t want to hack away at Harley’s protective shell. He wanted to creep past her outer defenses, through the sophisticated diversions she’d erected to deflect focus from her weakness, all the way to the deepest, most secret parts of her. He wanted to find the private places she held sacrosanct and rig the halls with explosives. He wanted to destroy her from the inside out, and for that he would need stealth and strategy, not a hand balled into a fist.

He was mentally running through his list of tactics and strategies, discarding those that seemed too blunt a tool to use now that he realized how quick and clever a viper he’d trapped under a basket, when his cell buzzed in his pocket.

Jackson pulled the slim phone free and glanced down to find a text from his spy—

Hoping you and Miss Hannah made it to your destination safely and will have a wonderful, relaxing vacation. I’ll be keeping an eye on Miss Sibyl and will make sure she’s taken care of. Please give Miss Hannah my best. She’s a lovely girl.

Jackson’s lips twisted. He tucked the phone into his pocket without bothering to respond.

Harley was only lovely on the outside and he couldn’t care less what Hiro did with her aunt. The man had served his purpose and was no longer of any use to Jackson. But the pearl farmer’s text did give him an idea…

Harley seemed to truly care about her family. She’d rarely spoken of her father, but when she’d mentioned her mother or aunt, her voice had softened in a way that had made the younger Jackson envious. Fool that he was, he’d wanted her voice to soften that way for him. He’d wanted to be part of her inner circle, to be one of the few people in the world who had touched her heart.

But Harley hadn’t let him in that deep. She was selfish and guarded with her affections. Whether she was incapable of romantic love or she had simply hated him too much to find a reason to care about him, Jackson couldn’t be sure, but he was positive he could use her love for her family against her.

He just needed to figure out how to sharpen the weapon and where to thrust the blade to do the most damage…

The thought had barely formed before he had his phone in his hand and Hiro’s number on speed dial. When the other man answered Jackson spoke over his bright hello.

“I’d like you to get close to Sibyl North and see if you can find out her real last name,” he said, turning away from the sea, sensing he had absorbed all the lessons it had to teach for the day. “Become her friend and confidante. I want private details of her life with Hannah, family pictures, stories, secrets they might be keeping, the location of other family members, anything you can find.”

Hiro cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I don’t know Mr. Hawke. I feel terrible about the lies I’ve told already. The ladies are good ladies. They are very sweet and gracious and I don’t—”

“I’ll triple your fee,” Jackson said, cutting him off, unable to handle hearing anyone sing the praises of Harley Garrett. “I’ll expect your first report in one week or I’ll find someone else to do the job.”

He hung up without waiting for the other man’s response. Hiro would do as he was told. His flash of conscience would fade away in the face of the promise of more money. His family’s pearl farm had yet to recover from the global recession and Hiro had three unwed sisters with eight children between them to feed. He would ingratiate himself into Sibyl North’s life and hopefully report back with information Jackson would be able to use against Harley.

In the meantime, he would do what he did best—get up, brush himself off, and start again. He’d come too far to be thrown off course by a bump in the road. Harley was quick and clever, but he held all the cards.

Now it was just a matter of deciding which one to play first.

CHAPTER FOUR

Hannah

By the time Hannah emerged from her shower that first afternoon, her clothes had mysteriously vanished from the floor and none had appeared to take their place.

After an hour spent pacing the large master suite with nothing but a towel clutched around her breasts, Hannah searched the bureau drawers until she found a flowered sheet she managed to fashion into a toga. It wasn’t much to look at—and she wasn’t much to look at in it—but it covered her nakedness and stayed put better than the towel.

She expected her stranger to reappear sooner or later—hopefully with something for her to wear since she hadn’t been allowed to bring a suitcase—but that first evening came and went without a sign of Mr. X or anyone else.

She woke Saturday morning to the sound of her stomach complaining and watched the sun shorten the shadows of the fruit trees in the expansive back lawn while her belly did its best to digest itself. She was a few minutes from violating the order not to leave her room to go in search of food when a small, nut-brown woman with gray threading through her long black braid pushed into the room carrying a breakfast tray.

The smell of hot buttery croissants, freshly cut fruit, and hot coffee in its own tiny French press was enough to make Hannah dizzy with gratitude. At least starvation wasn’t to be part of her punishment.

“Thank you so much,” she said, smiling as the woman set the tray down on the low table near the window. “I’m Hannah. Have you worked here long?”

“Eva,” the woman said, her expression guarded. “No English.”

Refusing to be deterred, Hannah widened her smile and made her introduction again in French, the language of most Tahitians, but Eva didn’t seem to understand that either. Hannah was getting ready to try in Spanish, when a man’s voice spoke softly from behind them.

“Mami, tu saves muy bien que no tienes nada de hablar con esa mujer."

Hannah turned to see the owner of the voice—a tall, slim dark-haired man with expressive eyes and a full mouth—motioning urgently for Eva to exit the room.

“Why aren’t you supposed to speak to me?” Hannah tailed the older woman as she hurried across the room. “Please,” she said, reaching out a hand to hold the door open after Eva had slipped beneath the man’s arm and disappeared down the hall. “Please, I just want someone to talk to. I’m not dangerous.”

“But the man we work for is.” Up close, the kid looked even younger. He couldn’t be more than twenty-one, but there was a dark knowledge in his gaze that made it clear he’d seen more than most men twice his age. “So we’ll do what Mr. Hawke says. You will be smart to do the same.”

He turned and walked away before Hannah could recover from the excitement of being granted a piece of the puzzle.

Mr. Hawke.
She had a last name!

Unless someone else owns this island. Maybe a friend of Mr. X’s, who is as dangerous and insane as his houseguest.

The voice of doom had a point, but Hawke fit her stranger. It seemed apropos that he would be named after a bird of prey.

If she’d had a few more minutes with Eva or her son, she might have been able to confirm that her abductor was their employer. She might have even learned his first name, which she would need as soon as she gained access to a computer or cell phone.

She paced back and forth in front of the partially open door, thoughts racing, determined to make contact with the son again at the first opportunity. He was concerned for his mother, but he seemed kind, too. At least kind enough that he had spared the time to give her a word of warning. She sensed that he could be valuable to her if she could gain his sympathy. At the very least he might help her keep from losing her mind.

Hannah didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, but she needed human connection. She needed to ground herself in this world via someone other than her stranger. If he was her only contact with humanity, she feared it wouldn’t be long before she lost what remained of her composure.

Her shoulders bunching with frustration, she shut the door and crossed back to her breakfast. She ate the two croissants and all of the fruit salad—she didn’t know when she would be fed again and it made sense to fill up—but the delicious baked goods and aromatic coffee didn’t taste as good as they should have. Anxiety left a bitter flavor in her mouth that tainted every bite.

If someone had asked her yesterday, she would have insisted there was nothing worse than having her stranger standing over her naked body with murder in his eyes. But this…waiting for the other shoe to fall, for the first shot to be fired, for the monster to leap out from behind the trees with claws bared, was so much worse.

She spent most of her first full day on the private island pacing her bedroom, staring out at the sunny day beyond the back patio off the master suite, growing progressively agitated. She had no work, no books, no television, no radio, not even a pack of cards to keep her mind focused on something other than the fact that she was the prisoner of a dangerous man who intended to destroy her.

Dread was slowly driving her out of her mind, a fact she was sure Hawke—if that was his name—was well aware of. He clearly had no moral compass to prevent him from using every dirty psychological trick in the book to weaken her defenses.

But he’d imprisoned a former psychology student, not a sculptor with a well-documented anxiety disorder. Hannah knew all about Stockholm Syndrome and she refused to fall victim to it. She would not mistake the absence of cruelty for kindness, she would not empathize or identify with her captor. She would remain focused on her deepest sense of self and her right to human decency.

Even if she were Harley and had done something worthy of punishment, she would still deserve that much. Even criminals on death row were allowed to eat, exercise, read, and lift their face to the sun for a few hours each week.

As soon as Hawke returned, she would demand that she be allowed a book and the right to walk outside in the back yard. She would make him see that she deserved a reward for her obedience.

He wants to push you into a breakdown, Hannah. You’ll be lucky if you’re not tortured, let alone rewarded.

Her thoughts were chilling, but she refused to dwell on them. She had to remain in the moment and face challenges as they arose. If she let herself start imagining all the things he might do to her, she would be doing his work for him and she refused to be complicit in her own destruction.

She went to bed that night determined to stay strong and woke the next morning three times as stir crazy as before. By the time she’d eaten her breakfast and the equally delicious lunch Eva delivered—scurrying in and out of the room so quickly it would have been funny if Hannah didn’t know the poor woman’s speed was born out of terror—she was near the end of her rope.

Not only was her captivity mind-numbingly boring, it gave her far too much time to think.

For the past six years, she’d been so busy struggling to keep the bed and breakfast afloat and scrambling to recover from one tragedy after another that she hadn’t had time to dwell on how empty her life was in so many ways.

But now, with nothing but four silent walls to stare at, she had time to think about the dreams she’d abandoned in the name of survival. She’d never finished her education or opened the children’s therapy practice she’d dreamed about since she was eleven years old. She’d never met a man who loved everything about her—the strong and the weak, the sweet and the sour—or started a family. She’d never been able to find out if she would have been a better parent than her cold father or shadow of a mother and now her dreams might never come true.