Page 11 of Captive Rival: Armani
“Sleep well?” I say coolly as the flight attendant walks off to prepare our food and my husband returns his seat from lay-flat mode to its original upright position.
“I did, thank you,” he answers, seemingly unbothered by my tone.
“So. Since we’re literallyin the airand I can’t possibly back out of this trip now, do you think it might be a good time to let me know where in the hell we’re going?” I say.
He shrugs. “We’ll be staying on a private island property. More of an isle, really.”
“An isle?” I sputter. Leave it to Armani Bellanti to rent himself an entire private island just so he can loll around in luxury while he’s evading homicidal mobsters. “And where is this alleged isle?”
“Does it matter? The location isn’t as important as what we’ll be doing there.”
“Hiding out, you mean?” I say.
He narrows his eyes. “I mean I’ll be using this time to decide if you’re still useful.”
My mouth instantly goes dry as Armani’s unspoken threat jacks my pulse. If I’m no longer useful, does that mean I won’t leave the island—isle—alive? How long will it take for someone to even realize I’m missing? The Bellantis would cover for Armani if the cops start asking questions, I’m sure of it. And if I did disappear off the face of the earth, I doubt anyone would ever find my body.
I can feel my blood running cold, but I remind myself that I’m going into this trip fully aware of the danger Armani poses to me. He might be deadly, but he won’t take me by surprise—because I am never going to let my guard down around him. And if it comes down to it, I’ll fight back. I’ll run. I’ll hide. I’ll do whatever it takes to survive, and I’ll make this asshole wish he’d never underestimated me.
“Welcome to your honeymoon,” he adds with a smirk.
“Honeymoon. Right. More like my jail sentence.”
“You aren’t a prisoner.”
“Of course I am. I’myourprisoner,” I point out.
That smirk spreads into a lazy grin as a flash of interest lights his eyes. He shifts in his seat, adjusting his pants in a way that makes it obvious he’s physically turned on by the idea. He wants to trap me, hold me down, restrain me. He wants to own me. And as much as I hate to admit it, I want him to.
Visions of handcuffs and black leather and blindfolds flit through my mind, a corresponding rush of excitement pulsing between my legs. I think back to the way he fingered me in the fitting room earlier, the feel of him lightly choking me, the thump of my heart as I almost came in his hand. As much as I hate him, I can’t deny that something about the man just…does it for me. Every time. Damn him.
Folding my arms over my chest, I swivel my seat toward the window, away from his diabolical hotness, just as the flight attendant rolls her cart out of the galley. I continue to ignore my husband as the attendant sets up a full-size dining table in the aisle between me and Armani. The food smells amazing, spicy and fragrant and savory. Unfortunately, I’ve lost my appetite and I have to force myself to smile politely as I’m served. Once she’s gone, I glare at Armani across the table.
In between bites of lamb and couscous, he picks up the conversation where we left off.
“Although we’ll be the only guests staying at the villa, you’ll need to follow some rules.”
“Why are you making rules if no one else is going to be there to catch me breaking them?”
“Because,” he goes on, “there will be a full staff there to attend to us, and while they’ve been thoroughly vetted, I don’t know any of these people well enough to trust them. Chef, cleaning staff, butler, groundskeepers—that’s a lot of potentially loose lips, and the last thing we need is someone leaking information to our enemies. So. You’ll need to play the loving bride for the duration.”
“Oh, of course. Because, per usual, we have to sell this bullshit marriage so that no one suspects you’re only keeping me around to feed fake intel to the Brunos.”
“Precisely,” he says. “If it got back to Sergio Bruno that we’re not madly in love, he’d immediately start to wonder why we went through the motions of eloping in Vegas in the first place. It wouldn’t take him long to put the pieces together and realize that you’re double-crossing him.”
“Fine. I’ll play the part,” I say curtly, lifting my chin. “But you don’t get to touch me. I don’t want you to lay a single finger on me the entire time we’re on the island.”
My words are a bluff—or an attempt to regain some semblance of control, really. Whether or not I’ll be able to stay strong and stick to my boundary is another story.
Still, drawing a line in the sand right now sends a message that I’m not going to just sit around on this trip compliantly letting Armani boss me around however he likes. In fact, this no-touching rule might be the only way I can fight off my horrible attraction to him. If he doesn’t touch me, maybe I can find some willpower. The willpower that usually flies out the window whenever I’m around him.
Armani nods, takes a long drink of his wine, and then says, “I will do my utmost to respect your wishes. Within reason. We don’t know who might be watching at any given moment, or what they might be overhearing. We can’t give anyone any ammunition.”
“Okay. So ifthereissomeone in the vicinity, you may engage inlimitedacts of PDA in the interest of keeping up appearances,” I concede. “Beyond that, we will not be physically intimate.”
“Understood.”
What he doesn’t know is that I fully intend to use my body as a weapon against him. Making him lust after me won’t give me enough of an upper hand enough to call the shots, of course, but at least it’ll give me an edge. I won’t be entirely defenseless. And considering the pile of new lingerie now at my disposal, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get him to play by some of my rules.
