As long as she was alive there was still hope.
The man looked her up and down and smirked. “Sleep well, whore, for tomorrow you die.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE DREAM came again. No matter that she tried to banish it. She couldn’t escape the exquisite pull…like the ocean’s tide beneath the influence of the full moon, it was destiny. He lay next to her. She didn’t have to open her eyes…she could feel him there. Long, dark hair against the linens. Skin that was bronzed as much by the sun as by genetics and stretched taunt over muscle sculpted by danger.
His deep voice whispered against her skin. You will always belong to me. Her fingers tightened in the sheet as images evolved, moving the dream from one moment in time to the next. Moments she had spent with him…in his arms. Then she saw a new face. An older man. He stared up at her in startled amazement. Blood bloomed from the place where a dagger protruded from his chest. With one bloody hand he reached for her…
“W-why?”
Ami bolted upright in bed, shattering the final image of her nightmare, her breath coming in uneven spurts.
Her hands shook as she pushed the hair back from her face. Sweat dampened her skin. Dreaming. She’d only been dreaming, she told herself as she struggled to gain her bearings.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the vivid picture of the bloody hand reaching out to her…the broken voice asking why. Though she didn’t recognize that face, she did know the other one that had haunted her yet again.
Forcing her respiration to quiet, she clenched her fists in preparation and turned her head in infinitesimal increments until she ensured that the other side of the bed was empty. She dragged in a lungful of blessed relief. Thank God. This time the dream had felt so real. It was as if he’d actually been right there next to her…touching her…whispering intimate words to her. She shivered and pulled her knees up so that she could press her forehead there.
Reality crashed in on her all over again. It was the same every morning. She would wake up from the powerful dreams, her skin still warm from the touch of his hand, whether real or imagined. But it damn sure felt real. Then she would gather her wits and she would know.
She was a prisoner.
Somewhere in France. She had gleaned that much from a glimpse of a television news program some of the men had been watching.
Three days he had kept her here. Forcing her to eat…to bathe…to wait. To obey his every order. The way he looked at her-she shivered again-terrified her on several levels. He despised her, wanted to hurt her somehow. The disgust was almost always there in those dark, dark eyes. But other times she saw something else. Pain. Need. Something along those lines. She could only assume that what he said was true and that this Amira Peres brutally betrayed him.
But she was not Amira Peres. She was Ami Donovan. The tears rose instantly, burning her eyes and reminding her of the defeat sucking at her very existence.
Dear God, she only wanted to get back to her son. To hold her sweet baby in her arms.
She tried to be strong. Looked for any avenue of escape, but they watched her every moment of every day.
The sobs started deep inside her, like the threatening rumbles of a volcano before it built to overflowing. When she could contain the misery no longer, she wept openly, loudly. Not for herself, but for her child.
She prayed again that Robert would be a good father to Nicholas. She wished for the hundredth time that she had married him as he’d asked on so very many occasions. Then she begged God to send Jack Tanner to rescue her. Surely the CIA wouldn’t just forget about her.
Scrubbing her face with the heels of her hands, she dredged up a smidgen of courage and fumbled for her composure as she climbed from the bed. Lying there crying would accomplish nothing. She had to find a way to escape.
The mere idea sent hope soaring inside her. She had to escape. It was the only way. She was the only woman here, as far as she had seen. That could be an advantage.
Renewed determination steadied her trembling limbs and firmed her resolve. Why hadn’t she thought of this already? All she had to do was befriend one of the guards and use him to unknowingly facilitate her escape.
She shuddered at the possibility of what that kind of maneuver might cost her, but whatever it cost it would be worth the price if she could get free. If she made it to a nearby house she could use the phone and call for help. There would be an American embassy in Paris, though she didn’t know how far she was from Paris. She would find a way to get there or, at the very least, get a call through to the police. She didn’t speak French, but she felt certain the word “help” was universal.
The image of her son was fixed steadfastly in her mind. She would do anything to get back to him. Anything.
Ami showered and dressed in another of the outfits Michal had purchased for her. He had apparently decided he would keep her alive for quite some time since he’d outfitted her with a fairly complete wardrobe. This time she would not rue the tight-fitting, revealing clothing. This time she would flaunt the assets her captor insisted on displaying.
She chewed her lip as she stared at her reflection in the steam-fogged mirror. If he really thought she was this Amira Peres who had betrayed him so cruelly, then why hadn’t he killed her already? Why did he dress her like a trashy Barbie doll and toy with her emotionally and physically? She tossed the brush aside and braced her hands on the basin to think about that for a bit. Maybe he was still in love with Amira Peres.
Turning that concept over in her mind, Ami straightened and paced the length of the small room. If he was still in love with the woman he thought her to be, that made him vulnerable on some level. She hesitated midturn. She could use that…pretend to be whatever he wanted her to be until just the right moment presented itself. She swung around and stared at her reflection once more. She could do that. The images from the dreams that haunted her each time she closed her eyes sent a quiver through her.
For her son she could do most anything.
The face of the older man, the one with the knife stuck into his chest, intruded on her musings. A frown marred her brow and something deep inside her shifted painfully. Who was the man? Had she conjured up the image from the horrible tales Michal Arad had told her? Or maybe Tanner had told her that she’d helped assassinate Amira Peres’s father? Was her subconscious somehow confusing fact with fiction?
She shook herself and pushed the concept aside. She had to focus here. Finally she had a plan. One that might just work. She pulled in a deep, steadying breath. One that could just as easily get her killed. But then, she was dead anyway, right?
She had to make this work. However she had to approach this new avenue cautiously. Too abrupt a change in her behavior would give her away. She had to proceed very, very carefully. If he suspected for one second that she was up to anything…
He would kill her. He wanted to already, but something held him back. A number of his men, especially the one named Carlos, didn’t like her being there. She’d have to see what she could do about that, as well. Win them over, in a manner of speaking.
You were undercover for three months…
Jack Tanner’s words echoed inside her. According to his side of all this she’d agreed to work for the CIA as some sort of undercover agent. She still couldn’t believe she’d done all that and had no memory of it. The last thing Robert had said to her reverberated through her with the force of a physical blow.