Page 91 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Her eyes burned. She’d have to sell. She’d have to sell the farm and Charlie and HowNow and everything. “You don’t have to cover it. It’s not your responsibility.”
“Yes, it is,” Blaze said, his voice low and serious. “It is my responsibility. I’ll cover it a hundred percent.”
They could argue that out later, some time that her body didn’t feel like it was covered in wet snakeskin.
Blaze continued, “But right now, we have to plan. We don’t have a working credit card, so we can’t fly. Buying last-minute tickets for cash would be more than I have in the house.”
“You have no cash in the house?” Magnus asked.
“I have about ten grand, I think. I had to pay someone fifteen large two days ago.”
Sarah. He’d paid Sarah fifteen thousand dollars two days ago, and she’d lost it.
Magnus frowned. “Was it connected to this problem?”
Blaze said, “Under the table payment. Landscaping.”
He was lying to his friends. Sarah didn’t like it.
Magnus said quietly, “Rogue Security would front you whatever cash you needed.”
The hacker said from the other end of the table, “Your names are probably on the no-fly list, too. If I were hacking you, I’d put them on.”
Sweat dripped over Sarah’s scalp under her hair.
Blaze said, his voice flat but steady, “If they’re hacking my security system and both our bank accounts, they’ll be watching for airline or other transportation transactions. We can’t fly, but we can drive.”
“Yes. We could drive,” Sarah said, desperate to leave that house and Chicago and get away. “We could drive somewhere. Um, maybe I can call Abigail and see if she has relatives in Pennsylvania or Ohio we could stay with. They’d never find us in Amish country.”
A tiny frisson trembled in her skin at the thought that ropes might be involved if they made another phone call.
“I have a better idea.” Blaze looked directly at her. “Your brother owes us both a damned explanation. Let’s go to New York.”
“Oh, no,” Sarah said, as habit kicked the words out of her brain. “I’m not having anything to do with Logan. He left the family.”
Blaze leaned over and murmured near her neck so quietly that surely the ambient noise of clinking and scraping of spoons on bowls covered it up. He said, “Don’t make me tie you up again.”
His hands tying her, the friction of the ropes on her body, his voice in her ear filled her mind, and her ribs felt as tight as if the ropes were binding her again.
Sarah’s face heated, and she glanced up to see if any of the others had heard.
He murmured, “Now hand me your phone.”
Making a scene in front of all these guys was akin to being the squalling child at the fair, so she held it out.
He took it from her, his fingertips brushing the palm of her hand, and whispered in her ear, “Good girl.”
A chill ran over her skin.
Surely, it was a chill, a terrified or horrified chill that he’d taken her phone away again.
Because it must be a chill, not a thrill, that crested over her skin and made her lips feel pillowy when his skin had rubbed over her hand, and his deep voice and warm breath had caressed her ear.
Across the table from her, Magnus lifted one eyebrow.
Blaze straightened. “We’ll go to New York.”
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