Confession by Carey Baldwin Page B

instructor always said.
    Trust your gut. Don’t be the gazelle. Be the lion.
    She stopped, crouched, readied herself to spin and face her stalker with raised fists.
    Get back! she’d yell. She’d be the lion, not the gazelle.
    Her hands came up as she pivoted and found herself facing a wall of well-­dressed, muscled chest. Brute strength and a starched collar. Wild possibilities flashed across her mind, but none made sense. A mob enforcer? Secret Ser­vice? In the nanosecond that passed before she could jerk her chin up and look him in the face, the man deflected her fists and spun her around. When he grabbed her by the waist, her breath rushed out. She dug her nails into his arms and stomped on his instep, but he lifted her off the pavement, leaving her feet kicking helplessly in the air.
    Help!
    She screamed. But as in a dream, no sound came out of her mouth. Her heart roared in her chest like the lion she wanted to be, but her vocal cords had frozen. The man took several giant strides forward. With blood rushing to her head and storefronts passing by, her stomach lilted in protest. The sun, reflecting off a long, black car, hit her in the eyes, all but blinding her. The man opened the car door. Dumped her inside.
    â€œHelp!” At last her voice returned.
    Snap.
    She heard the sound of doors locking.

 
    EIGHT
    Tuesday, July 23, 11:00 A.M.
    I t’d been a crime of opportunity . . . and a monumentally bad idea. Luke had never anticipated bumping into Dr. Faith Clancy on his way to meet Detective Johnson at the police station. If he had, maybe he would’ve run through the scenario in his head a few times and thought of a different way to handle matters—­a way that didn’t have the potential to land him behind bars. But he hadn’t anticipated, he hadn’t planned, and when he saw the woman who’d turned his brother in to the police, sauntering down the street, smiling at the flower girl, and chatting up the sax guy, enjoying life without a care in the world, his core temperature had started to rise.
    Injustice was a repeating theme in Dante’s life, and Luke had had enough of standing by and doing nothing while his brother suffered. So he’d followed her, and when she turned, fists up, ready to pummel him, he’d lost it. No other way to describe how reason had fled and animal instinct had taken over. His skin had grown clammy. His pulse had bounded in his neck, and his body had charged off on its own ill-­considered mission without a care as to consequence.
    He never decided to scoop her up and carry her to his limo; he’d simply acted on impulse. He’d grabbed her in broad daylight on a public thoroughfare, and now here she was bucking in his arms in the backseat of his limo, screaming at the top of her lungs like . . . like a woman who’d been abducted off the street.
    Nice going, Luke.
    He should find a way to calm her down—­fast. His arms released her. Maybe an apology to start. “I—­”
    She drew back. A hard slap across his jaw shut that idea down, and he didn’t have a Plan B, but at least she’d stopped screaming. Apparently, she couldn’t slap and scream for help at the same time. Or maybe she’d finally gotten a good look at him and realized he wasn’t the bogeyman. He thought he’d seen a flash of recognition in her eyes just before she’d slapped him, and her terror seemed to have been replaced by fury.
    Her hand came up for another whack. His blood still simmering, he clasped her by the wrists, yanked her against his chest. The tremor in her arms sent vibrations through his own, and her heart beat wildly against his. He took a gulping breath. Her skin smelled like flowers. Her breasts rubbed against him as she struggled. Arousal, as unreasoned as the act of swooping her up in the first place, shot through him. He looked down at her, and her breath caught. Her eyes widened.