“Put me back,” I said.
“You’re inhibited?”
“What? No! Yes! Who the hell cares?” I squawked.
“We care. Let these men help you,” Grisham said, his entire demeanor overtaken by sudden concern and compassion. The old faker.
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why?” I repeated. “What do you stand to gain from this?”
“What makes you think we harbor ulterior—”
“Kidnapping stirs up an awful lot of trouble,” I noted.
Grisham frowned at me. From the corner of my eye, I caught Carrollus studying me.
“It’s no trouble,” Grisham countered, shaking his head.
“So you burned down my apartment?” I prompted.
“Of course not.”
“Destroyed my computer files and my backups?”
“We’ve done nothing of the kind,” Grisham said.
Carrollus shifted, drawing my gaze to his. He scowled.
“Do you believe the police will secure a search warrant for your home”, he said, “where they will find your computer with your résumé files and the address of the building where we met?”
I held his gaze for several moments. “They’ll find my briefcase with my belongings still where I set it against the coffee table, yes.”
“Release your cares,” Grisham urged. “Cast aside your culture’s notions of morality. We value physical pleasure. These men want to fulfill your every desire.”
My every desire? Did I have any? Other than going home and maybe kicking Jill repeatedly in the ribs? I shook away the vision.
“Are there no women in your crew? Is that why you’re kidnapping sex slaves?” I asked.
The captain jerked upright, glaring. “That, madam, is a grave insult. We have never and will never force anyone—”
I frowned. “You put back the people who refuse?”
“No one has ever refused.”
“No one—” I echoed before clamping my mouth shut.
“Pick a man,” he coaxed. “Give us thirty days, then we’ll talk again.”
I stifled the urge to put my spike heel through his foot. Even I knew that would negatively impact on my captivity.
“‘We’ll talk’? Oh, no. You want me to play this game? Give me something to fight for. Swear you’ll put me back when the time is up, and then I’ll pick someone. Otherwise, we’re at an impasse. You’ve been kind enough to say no one will force me. I’d like to return the courtesy. I do not want to have to force your hand.”
Every man in the room stared at me. That’s right, boys. Long legs, short skirt, cute pumps. Harmless.
“You have no means to carry out that threat,” the captain scoffed.
“Look up Gandhi,” I said, pressing my voice flat. “Then look up ‘hunger strike’.”
“You would destroy yourself?”
“You’ve destroyed my freedom,” I said, “my career, and now you’re threatening to destroy my life. I’m clear that getting your soldiers laid is vital to you. It’s also clear that you won’t tell me why. I may have little interest in dying, but I’m less interested in being kept as a sex slave. So many willing, young, fertile women in the world. Why me?”
His breath hissed in between his clenched teeth.
“This isn’t slavery,” he snapped. “Thirty days. If at the end of that time you still wish to return, I swear we’ll find a way.”
“Deal.” I noticed that he hadn’t answered my question, but I had a possible road home. If the old man could be trusted to keep his word. “Tell me the rules.”
“Choose one or as many men as you please from those assembled within the limits of the oval, then enjoy yourself.”
Enjoy? Could I?
“My everlasting regret is that I can’t have you myself .” Carrollus had said that when he’d thought I couldn’t hear.
He’d kidnapped me.
If I had anyone to blame for this mess, it was he. I could use him. I straightened and smiled.
“You’ve chosen?”
“Sure,” I said. I spun and jabbed a finger at Trygg. “Him.”
The room held its collective breath while Carrollus rocked back on his heels, shock in the widening of his midnight-blue eyes.
I grinned, a careless, I-dare-you – and maybe slightly vengeful – grin at him.
Protest erupted from the testosterone line-up. Carrollus thundered for quiet, got it, then turned a baleful glare upon me.
“I am disqualified. You may not select me.”
“I just did.”
He shook his head. “No—”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Your captain laid out the rules. I followed them, and now you refuse to abide by them? You’re already taken, is that it?”
“Yes.”
The way he pounced on the out I’d offered him made it obvious. He was lying.
I nodded. “I believe this invalidates our thirty-day agreement. I’m ready to go home, now.”
His expression shifted and my heart skidded into uneasy thudding.
He looked intrigued.
“He was not a part—” Grisham growled.
“‘Choose one or as many men as I please from those assembled within the limits of the oval’,” I quoted back to him. “Your rules. He’s in the oval.”
The old man scowled. “Then keep him. The agreement stands, with the caveat that you leave me no choice but—”
The lights dimmed.
Carrollus swore in his language. I thought I heard an audible alarm somewhere in the distance.
Men scrambled for stations. Several young women, also in uniform, burst through the door and raced for empty chairs.
The alarm died.
“Sir!” one of the women called.
“Enemy ships entering the solar system!” “Enemy ships?” I echoed. “I thought you were hiding from Earth.”
“We are,” Carrollus said, cold rage coloring his voice. “We were. Until now.”
I froze, awful awareness tripping my pulse into high gear. “You’re refugees, aren’t you? You thought you’d escaped. But you drew your enemy after you.”
Carrollus gripped my arms and pulled me around to face him. I shivered at the chemistry that bubbled through my system at the contact. “They want us,” he said. “Your world is in no danger.”
But I was, by simple virtue of being on board their ship. “How did I get here? A shuttle? Teleportation of some kind?”
Carrollus nodded at the last one.
“Is it working?”
“No time,” Grisham barked. “There are too many of you. Commander!”
Carrollus accessed a panel, studying the data that answered his summons.
Too many of us? What did Grisham mean? Too many people to evacuate to the safety of Earth, presumably.
“The sensor embedded in the New Horizons probe indicates a pair of Orseggan scouts inbound to our position. Weapon status?” Grisham thundered.
“Offline, sir,” a young officer replied.
My heart bumped against my ribs.
“Shields?”
“Offline, sir,” yet another officer answered.
“Interstellar drive?”
“Offline!”
I pressed shaking fingers against my temples.
The ship was defenseless.
“This is the second time today you’ve tried to get me killed,” I snapped at Carrollus.
“This was unanticipated!” Grisham protested.
My humorless smile felt icy. “Like an adverse reaction to a drug?”
Carrollus glanced up from his panel to pin me with a grim stare. “You have a right to be angry. I can’t change what’s happened. But we have time. They do not yet know we’re here.”
I frowned. “You have the time to bring weapons and shields online?”