blame me for trying.”
He said nothing. Held her gaze, his eyes cold and guarded. A tic twitched his jaw, the one sign that he’d definitely lost his cool with her. When he reached for her, she sighed and rolled her eyes, expecting to feel the bite of his hand latched on her upper arm while he manhandled her into the vehicle.
Instead metal snapped against her right wrist.
Liliana blinked and looked down at the handcuff. “Um, you’re cuffing me now?”
The other bracelet snapped on his right wrist, locked in place.
She looked between them, pulled on the chain connecting them for a moment but it held fast. “What the—”
“Congratulations, Miss White—you’ve just ensured the next few weeks are going to be very interesting.”
Chapter Four
Handcuffed to O’Hara.
That was something she hadn’t expected.
He’d maneuvered her into the SUV by forcing her in the driver’s seat ahead of him—apparently he didn’t trust her enough to wait for the cuffing part. Then back they went to the hotel, a long thirty minute drive in silence.
“What took you so long?” she asked at last as he parked in the lot approximately where he’d left the SUV last night.
“I had a few calls to make.” He waited by the open door, his arm stretched out, while she wiggled her way over the seats until she could climb out and stand next to him.
“And you weren’t worried I’d get away?” She struggled to keep up with his fast clip as he headed back into the hotel, a repeat from last night except she stumbled in too-big shoes with soaking wet feet and she felt even more hopeless than she did previously.
“The bus was actually preferable—I knew exactly where you were and could pick you up at my leisure.”
She chewed on that while they rode in the elevator and then headed back toward the room. He unlocked the door and pulled her inside, the cuff biting into her skin. He stopped her just inside the door, produced the tiny key to the handcuffs, and unlocked hers. Before she could make a snarky remark, he pulled off the gloves and her jacket, then his own coat, and once again snapped the cuff back on her wrist.
Liliana looked from the cuffs to him. “You’re serious about this?”
He blinked back at her impassively, no longer angry and not amused either. “Your bed or mine?”
Asshole . She twisted from him and kicked off her shoes, then stripped off all the layers of socks only to leave them in a wet pile on the carpet. She sat on the bed he’d occupied last night and sure enough he sat next to her, both of them leaning against the headboard. Rather than go for the TV this time, he pulled out his cell phone and thumbed through it. Their linked hands remained on the bed between them.
“What about when I have to shower or go to the bathroom?” she said. “You joining me for that?”
“If I think you’re a threat to your own safety, maybe,” he said without looking up from his phone. “But unless you’ve dug a tunnel through the tile in there, you can use the facilities cuffed by yourself.”
He was serious.
It seemed like her options, then, were to behave herself and convince him she could be trusted so he’d take the cuffs off her—and they might very well be long past that now—or just drive him insane until he gave up and quit.
The silence was driving her nuts, making her antsy. Her toes were cold, skin puckered from being stuck in wet socks for so long. The coffee from the breakfast tray was likely stone cold by now. Maybe if they were going to be here a while, he’d get someone to bring a coffeemaker up permanently.
“What if I just started screaming and someone called hotel security, and they found I was being kept here against my will?”
“I get arrested, you get taken in as well, they take your name and statement, and everyone will know where you are. But I’m doubtful anyone will hear you scream.”
“You booked the rooms on either side of us, didn’t you?”
“And