Inescapable

Chapter 4

Once she’d managed to get her panic attack under control, Iris tucked into the rapidly cooling breakfast. It wasn’t anything fancy, two grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee. Nonetheless, she was grateful for such basic human courtesy from her jailer and scarfed down the meal like the starving woman she was.

She downed a couple of pills after the meal and—once she felt a little more in control—shut the window because it was freezing. She took solace in the fact that she could open it at any time. And that thought helped.

For now.

After that she wandered from bathroom to bedroom to living room to kitchen in an endless loop. She occasionally paused at the windows to glare out at the rain, willing it to stop. She knew she could climb out of one of the windows and make her way into the main part of the house, but she could pretty much predict TDH’s reaction to any such move from her, and she didn’t want to find herself out on her arse, trying to navigate her way—on foot—back to town in this relentless downpour.

She finally stopped her restless pacing because it didn’t help—instead it heightened her anxiety and she had to remain calm. She collapsed onto the sofa and picked up the TV remote to flip through some channels, pausing every so often when something caught her interest. Eventually she stopped at what appeared to be a soap opera. They weren’t speaking English—Iris couldn’t quite place the language, it had a vaguely Germanic sound to it, so it was probably Afrikaans—but there were subtitles. Ooh, it looked like someone’s baby had been kidnapped.

Iris grabbed up a scatter cushion and hugged it to her chest as she watched the drama unfold. It was a fascinating insight into South African society… well, the interaction between characters was fascinating. She imagined that babies being kidnapped by jealous ex-lovers likely wasn’t a common occurrence in everyday life here. It was fun to try and differentiate between the languages spoken. Iris had a good ear for languages and, so far, had picked up at least three separate dialects.

One twenty-five-minute installment flowed into the next, and before she knew it, Iris had watched five episodes. She was disappointed to realize that there were no other episodes forthcoming and assumed it was an omnibus of the week’s quota.

It was a diverting way to spend a couple of hours, and had—mostly—kept her mind off the locked door. But now she was back to her dismal reality.

She switched off the TV and sighed, restlessness and boredom and prickling anxiety immediately setting in. She considered taking more pills, but tamped down the urge. She’d wait until after dinner. She was going to have to battle her way through this.

Iris wasn’t used to having nothing to do—she lived an active life. Back home, when she wasn’t occupied with her many freelance editing projects, she was helping her parents, or volunteering at various animal shelters. She rarely found herself at loose ends.

How she wished she had an editing project to sink her teeth into right now. But she’d finished up all her jobs after landing this dream assignment and had temporarily closed up shop to come here.

She’d hoped this would lead to bigger, better things. A career in entertainment journalism, maybe. She laughed bitterly at her naivete. All she’d be getting from this nightmare was a criminal record.

She buried her face in her hands, ready to give in to the ever-lurking tears, when she heard light scratching and sniffing at the door. Her head jerked up and she darted to the door to peek through the keyhole. All she could see was Luna’s big, shiny black nose, and she smiled.

“Hey girl,” she whispered, so thankful to have the dog there. “Thank you for visiting me. It makes me feel less lonely. I wish TDH would let you in to stay with me for a while.” The last emerged on a wistful note and she sighed. She slid down the wall and sat flat on her bum, next to the door. She was reassured to hear Luna still snuffling at the keyhole, and continued talking to the dog.

“I wonder what my mum and dad are doing right now? Probably run off their feet at the Bhandari wedding. They’ll be catering for a thousand guests. Gosh, my parents were so excited to land that contract. But you can be damned sure Robbie will be bitching about working today, especially at an event that size. He’ll moan even more than usual because I’m not there to help.”

She smiled fondly—missing her family so much it ached—and picked at the cuticle on her thumb.

“He’s ten years younger than me, you see. Only sixteen. He resents having to spend his weekends and spare time waiting tables at our parents’ catering events. He wants to be like the rest of his mates. We don’t have much in common, but that’s one teenage resentment we share. I was the same. I was such an arsehole about it too. Even more so than Robbie.”

She thought back to all the times she’d flared up at her parents about having to work on Fridays and Saturdays. She’d been such a bitch. And deliberately hurtful.

She shook off the thought. She was depressed enough right now without fueling that despondency with familial regrets.

She sat wrapped up in her memories for a long moment before a soft scratch at the door—followed by a quiet whine— jerked her from her thoughts.

“Sorry, Luna,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I got a bit bogged down there. I think I’m homesick. I’m not usually one to wallow in my own misery, but this situation is a little ridiculous, and I feel like I deserve at least a day of what the fuckness before I drag myself out of it.”

She heard a sharp whistle, followed by a curt, “Let’s go, girl!”

Luna’s paws scrabbled on the floors and Iris heard her retreating without so much as a farewell sniff.

“Hey, where are you guys going?” she called, with no real hope of having her question acknowledged. “Can I come too?”

No response from either Luna or her horrible master, instead she heard a door slamming in the distance.

Did they really just go out in this shit weather? She hurried over to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of them, even though the door had slammed on the other side of the house.

It was pelting down and the wind hadn’t calmed at all. If anything, it seemed worse. Why would they venture out in this mess?

What if something happened to the damned fool man? Did she even care? If he got himself injured or killed, she’d be fine. Even better than she was now, really, because she’d be able to climb out of this very window and make her way into the main house where she’d have access to food and possibly a phone.

She was imagining a scenario whereby she heroically rescued him—with Luna’s assistance—from the bottom of a steep hill when she heard the door opening again, immediately followed by fast, urgent footfalls heading her way. Seconds later the key rotated in the lock, and she turned from the window just as the door pushed inward.

Trystan Abbott stepped into the room. He was wearing a dark green heavy-duty oilskin rain jacket—the type fishermen on boats used—water was streaming off it in rivulets and leaving puddles on the floor. The man himself looked even bigger in the wet-weather gear and appeared to be bristling with agitation.

Immediately alarmed, Iris took a couple of steps toward him, before coming to an uncertain halt.

“What’s wrong? Is Luna okay?”

No sooner had she asked the question than the big dog nosed her way into the room and Iris’s shoulders dropped in relief.

“I need your help,” TDH said, storming forward and grabbing her hand without any warning. Taken aback by the unsolicited contact—as well as by the iciness of his skin against hers—Iris didn’t immediately protest. She was dragged halfway to the door before she dug her heels in and slowed down their progress. He stopped, his head whipped around, and he pinned her with an intimidating glare.

“My help with what?” Iris asked, matching his glare with one of her own.

“Laying sandbags in front of the garage doors to mitigate the effects of the flooding.”

“What flooding?” she asked, alarmed. “Are we safe here?”

He sighed, the sound short and irritated and really bloody condescending.

“The house itself is pretty high, so the possibility of it flooding is minimal. The garage, however, is underground.”

“Seems shortsighted,” she couldn’t help but retort, and he gave her another annoyed glower.

“Stop fucking mouthing off and get a move on.”

“Maybe if you were less rude to me, I’d consider helping you save your millions of pounds worth of cars. Until then, I’m quite content to stay in my prison cell.”

Only she wasn’t. Iris was dying to get out, but she figured she had some bargaining power here, which she ought to take advantage of.

He eyed her for a speculative moment, then shrugged in unconcern and dropped her hand.

“Fine, you’ll probably slow me down anyway.”

Shit, didn’t the guy understand the fine art of negotiation?

“You’re supposed to offer me something to sweeten the deal,” she informed him, folding her arms over her chest.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t need your help that desperately.”

“Sure you do,” she negated. “You came pounding in here reeking of panic and desperation. You’re worried about your precious cars, aren’t you?”

“Thought you’d jump at the opportunity to make yourself useful and get out of this room for a while. That prospect should have been enough of a deal sweetener.”

Ugh… he was right about the latter. Why was she risking the possibility of him changing his mind?

Nonetheless, she needed to use the little leverage she had. “I’d help for the Wi-Fi password.”

He crossed his beefy arms over his massive chest and his unkempt beard twitched as his top lip curled.

“Sure.”

His easy acquiescence threw her, and she blinked up at him, her mouth slightly agape.

“What?”

“I said ‘sure’,” he repeated.

Iris’s stomach sank and she gave him a dejected frown.

“You were going to give it to me anyway, weren’t you?”

The wicked gleam in his eyes told her she was right, but he didn’t admit as much out loud. Damn it, she should have asked for something else, like visitation rights with Luna… or leaving the door unlocked.

What a letdown. She’d been so certain she had the upper hand, but no, he held all the cards. She was so damned frantic to get out of this room that even if he’d refused to give her the password, she would still have conceded. And he knew it.

“Put on some shoes,” he said, after a glance down at her socks.

He made no acknowledgment of, or apology for, the fact that he’d been about to drag her out into the wet and cold without shoes.

Iris grumbled under her breath as she went to the closet to drag out her hiking boots, which she’d nearly not brought because of how heavy they are. But she’d had some romantic notion of joining Trystan Abbott on long hikes, while they amicably chatted about his life, loves, and losses.

Such foolish, optimistic whimsy.

He eyed her boots when she rejoined him at the front door.

“Those are surprisingly practical,” he acknowledged, almost begrudgingly, and Iris did her best to disguise her rolling eyes from him.

Unsuccessfully.

“What’s with that expression?” he demanded to know, and she huffed an impatient sigh.

“I’m not sure why you’re surprised by my choice of practical shoes when you know nothing about me.” She used air quotes around the word practical just because she figured it would annoy him. Sure enough, his eyes flashed at the gesture.

“You don’t strike me as a very practical person. You trekked across unknown terrain, in the dark and the rain, armed with nothing but a phone flashlight… thinking that your intrusion would be welcomed by someone who’d clearly sought the most isolated place he could find in order to avoid human contact. Not very practical or—y’know—clever.”

“My decision to trek here through the dark, and wind—it only started raining after you tossed me out into the storm—was validated if what you said about the car being crushed is true.”

He didn’t respond, merely leveled a malevolent look at her before turning abruptly. “Do you have anything waterproof? A rain slicker? Jacket?”

Her lips thinned and her silence spoke for her. Same as his insufferable, smug, know-it-all snort spoke for him.

“Now, packing some kind of waterproof gear when traveling to an area infamous for its winter storms would definitely have been considered a practical, clever move.”

Arrogant prick.

“I don’t have anything that’ll fit you,” he said, running an assessing glance over her frame.

“I’ll be fine. I can bear a little rain.” Only it wasn’t a little rain. There was a seriously scary amount of water falling from the sky right now.

“If you say so,” he said with a disinterested shrug. “Follow me.”

He led the way through the hallway back toward the kitchen. It was interesting to see the house in the gloomy light of a rainy day. Last night everything had been dark and a little terrifying but today she found herself astonished by how lovely this house was. The colors were bright and fresh—cream, sage, and the palest of pinks as an accent hue. It was unexpected and not at all what she would have pictured for Trystan Abbott’s home.

They hastened past a wall of framed photos and Iris’s steps slowed as she tried to take in the images. Clearly annoyed with her lingering, he backtracked a few steps and grabbed her hand to drag her along behind him.

The contact—like before—startled her. What the hell was up with these caveman tactics?

“Hey, mister, it’s not okay to just grab a woman like that,” she gasped, fighting to keep up, and simultaneously trying to pull her arm from his unrelenting grip.

“And it’s not okay to snoop around people’s private shit.”

“They’re photos. On display. They’re there to be looked at. Why else go to the trouble of printing, framing and hanging them?”

“They’re to be looked at by invited guests, which you are not.” He didn’t even bother to glance back at her as he said that, instead hauling her to the kitchen door leading outside.

She hesitated just inside the door, staring up at the gunmetal gray sky and the constant torrent of water streaming down from it. The man in front of her stopped as well and turned back to glower at her for a long moment before his shoulders lifted and fell in what looked like a heavy sigh.

Before she knew what his intention was he had dragged his raincoat off and draped it over her shoulders like a cape, fastening only the top two buttons at her throat and tugging the hood up over her head.

“It’s hopeless trying to put your arms in the sleeves,” he muttered, half to himself. “It’s miles too big. And it’ll be impossible to roll up, so this’ll have to do until we get to the shed.”

“You don’t have to do this,” she protested half-heartedly, but he ignored her and continued forward.

Iris followed him. The jacket helped, but the front of her hoodie and her jeans were still getting soaked. At least her shoulders and head remained dry, as long as she kept the hood from blowing back.

At that point—regretting every decision that had led to this miserable moment in her life—Iris was helpless to do anything other than keep her eyes trained on Trystan Abbott’s broad shoulders and follow meekly.

Alarmingly, there was water flowing pretty rapidly over the toes of her boots, and the fast-running streams seemed to get deeper as they progressed further downhill into the garden.

He led her to the large-ish shed and she waited, shivering, while he unlocked the padlock on the doors. He turned to face her after swinging the doors open. Even though it was quieter inside the—blessedly dry—shed, the wind and rain were still a constant roar, and it was hard to hear him, but Iris kept her eyes glued to his face, afraid of missing some important instruction.

“There are two wheelbarrows,” he all but shouted down at her. “We’ll fill the first one together. I’ll wheel it down to the garage where I’ll offload and stack the bags. Meanwhile, you fill the empty wheelbarrow, and when I bring the other one back, I’ll take the filled on back down. We can get an efficient production line type of system going like that.”

Iris dubiously eyed the very many bright orange sandbags heaped against the back wall of the shed. They weren’t very big, but they looked heavy as hell. Iris was of medium height and weight, and not particularly strong, and she wasn’t sure she’d get the wheelbarrow loaded by the time he was done stacking the sandbags.

Still, since she’d managed to lug her twenty-five-kilogram suitcase around for short distances at a time, she could probably heave sandbags into a wheelbarrow if she had to. She just wouldn’t be very fast at it.

“How heavy are those bags?” she asked, pushing the hood off her head when it kept slipping down over her eyes. In the meantime, she tried very hard not to notice how his flannel shirt was plastered to his muscular chest and shoulders, leaving not much to the imagination.

He gave her another once-over—again appearing unimpressed with what he saw—and lifted his shoulders.

“About fifteen kilograms. You look weak and soft as hell, but you’ll probably be able to manage that.”

“I’m not weak and soft,” she retorted sharply.

“No?” Now it was his turn to look dubious.

“No, I can do this,” she told him through chattering teeth. God, she was freezing. It felt like cold and wet had been pretty much her constant state of being since arriving in this godawful place. She turned toward the bags and fumbled with one, her frigid, numb fingers struggling to get a grip around the edges of the bag.

He made an impatient sound behind her and brushed by her to pick up two bags at once and load them into one of the empty wheelbarrows.

Show-off.

Iris was finally able to wedge her fingers beneath the bag and managed—with an embarrassing groan and a great deal of effort—to lift it. She couldn’t quite straighten her back and did a humiliating crouched little crab walk to the wheelbarrow, where—with gargantuan effort—she heaved it a bit higher to dump it on top of the six bags he’d already put in there.

He didn’t acknowledge her paltry contribution. Instead, he continued to steadily fill the wheelbarrow, six bags for every one of hers. She managed to double her pace after a couple of warm-up bags, but she was still much slower than he was.

She shrugged out of the raincoat, hoping she would move faster without having its cumbersome heaviness hamper her movements, but that didn’t help.

The first wheelbarrow was filled within minutes—thanks to him—and he gave a pointed glare at the empty one, before leveling a critical look at her.

Yeah, message received.

Get your arse in gear, Iris!

“Wait,” she called as he turned to leave. “Don’t you want to put your raincoat back on?”

He shook his head.

“No point, I’m soaked through already. And it’ll only slow me down.”

He was gone before she could reply and she rolled her eyes at the tough-guy routine before getting to work.

She managed to get a good rhythm going and had the second wheelbarrow almost half-filled by the time he returned with his now-empty one.

He stood glowering at her hard work for a second.

“It’s half-empty,” he said. The impatience snapping around the edges of his words curled her hands into tight fists.

“It’s half-full,” she corrected. “And I’m going as fast as I can.”

“Knew you’d be useless at this.”

The unfair words snatched her breath from her chest as anger heated her from the inside out.

“I’m doing the best I can, you-you prick! You’re twice my size. You can’t expect me to have the same strength and speed as you.”

“I get the feeling you’ve spent most of your life whining about how unfair life is and how you just can’t seem to catch a break. Complaining seems to be your natural state.”

“Nothing about these last few days has been normal, so excuse me for being vocal about how shit it’s all been.”

“Nobody to blame but yourself,” he said with an unconcerned shrug, bypassing her to grab a couple of sandbags.

“And y’know…” she said, huffing and groaning as she lifted another bag herself. “You. And your clearly incompetent manager.”

“Lift with your knees,” he instructed, as he watched her bend at the waist to grab the corners of a bag and drag it to the wheelbarrow, where she lifted it the short distance into the barrow bed. “You’ll fuck up your back if you keep doing it that way.”

“This is the easiest way for me to do it,” she argued, even though she was starting to feel the burn in her lower back already and her arms were in the process of turning to jelly.

“Try squatting when you grab the bag and then pushing up with your knees.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted stubbornly. She’d been lifting with her knees until the last few bags when her thighs had started to tremble with each squat. After nearly falling just before he’d returned, she’d started in on this less-practical method. It was getting the job done. She’d worry about the pain later.

She could feel disapproval oozing from his very pores, but refused to look at him. He struck her as the type of man who was used to being deferred to and obeyed. He wouldn’t appreciate being blatantly ignored.

But she didn’t care. It was clear the interview was a no-go, so she didn’t have to suck up to him. She was his unwilling prisoner and she wasn’t about to be pleasant to her jailer.

She deliberately avoided eye contact as she dragged bag after bag to the wheelbarrow, refusing to acknowledge her shaking arms and thighs, or the burning sensation in her back and chest.

He left with the filled wheelbarrow and she started on the empty one. When he next returned it was three-quarters full. He didn’t say anything, merely filled the rest of it, while she switched her focus to the empty wheelbarrow. They worked silently, side by side, for another hour.

Iris’s entire body was one massive ache by then and she was going through the motions, moving like an unthinking automaton and barely registering his comings and goings while she worked.

When he returned with the wheelbarrow for the umpteenth time, Iris jerkily moved to retrieve another bag, but his hand on her elbow stayed the movement.

“We’re out of bags,” he said, and she blinked, gazing at the empty corner uncomprehendingly. “Why don’t you sit over here while I stack these last few? I’ll be right back.”

He led her to a rickety wooden bench, probably stored in the shed because it had seen better days. She had zero control over her movements and was grateful to him for leading her to the bench as she wouldn’t have been able to make it there under her own steam.

When she sat down, a silent scream of agony reverberated through her brain as her muscles protested the new movement after more than an hour of the same repetitive motions. Iris watched him disappear into the gloom and rain and knew that if he didn’t return, she would be wholly incapable of going in search of him.

For the first time since they’d left the house, she found herself curious about Luna’s whereabouts. The dog hadn’t followed them outside and Iris wondered if it was because TDH had locked her in the house to prevent the canine from being underfoot while they worked.

Luna was a pleasant subject with which to occupy her wandering mind, and Iris wondered how old the dog was. Did she often travel with her owner? Iris hadn’t really heard anything about him having a dog before. Usually celebrity-owned dogs achieved a degree of fame as well. And an oversized dog like Luna would surely have been noticed by the media.

Iris was idly mulling over the dog when Trystan Abbot reappeared, his hulking frame blocking out the sullen light in the doorway.

“Let’s go,” he commanded her in that no-nonsense, irritating way of his.

But, since Iris was incapable of moving, she attempted to deflect his attention. “What kind of dog is Luna?”

His head tilted as he watched at her. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, not with the light behind him, but she sensed his curiosity.

He shocked the hell out of her when he deigned to reply. “Irish wolfhound.”

“How old is she?”

“Two.” Another easy reply. He propped a shoulder against the doorframe and folded his beefy arms over his chest, while he continued to stare at her. The rain had to be pelting against his back, but he gave no sign that it bothered him.

“And you’ve had her since she was a puppy?”

“Hmm.”

“Does she often travel with you?”

“Hmm.”

Not very forthcoming, but she took it to mean yes.

“Why an Irish wolfhound?”

His shoulders shifted. “Why not?”

“Why are you answering my questions?” The question was out before she even knew she was going to ask it, her brain as sluggish as her body.

“Because it’s a very obvious delaying tactic,” he said, pushing away from the doorframe and coming toward her. He moved with the sinuous flexibility of a man who knew his body—and its limitations—very well. She’d never seen anything quite as sexy as that intent prowling gait of his.

“Delaying tactic?” she repeated. Yet another delaying tactic. It was embarrassingly obvious, and she almost imagined she caught the fleeting glimpse of a grin beneath that beard.

“You can’t move, can you?” he asked, lowering himself into a lithe squat in front of her. Crowding her with his heat and masculinity and bulk. His large hands were resting on the bench on either side of her hips and his face was inches away from hers.

The clean scent of fabric softener wafted up from his soaked clothing, combined with something woodsy—his shampoo or soap maybe. God, he smelled amazing. No expensive aftershave or cologne here. Just soap, and detergent, and outdoors, and man.

She swallowed past the painful lump that had lodged in her throat.

This was Trystan Abbot, hottest man on the planet according to several well-known publications, as well as the thousands of fan-run social media accounts dedicated to him. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of people scattered across the globe who flocked to see his movies every year.

The guy was undeniably charismatic, sexy, and a feast for the eyes. And—after the kidnapping and imprisonment and arseholery of the last twenty-four hours—Iris had lost sight of exactly who it was she was dealing with. But right now, despite his grumpiness and this whole lumberjack-hermit thing he had going on she was very conscious that the man in front of her was, in fact, a multiple-award-winning movie star.

“How bad is it?” he asked, an unfamiliar gentleness seeping into his voice.

“What?” She couldn’t quite keep up with the conversation. Not when she was so exhausted and in pain and overwhelmingly aware of who he was.

“The pain? How bad is it?”

Oh.

She stared down at her hands, which were resting palm up on her lap, fingers curled into claws.

“Well, I don’t think I can bend my fingers,” she admitted. “And I’m not sure I can lift my arms. My thighs feel like jelly and I very much doubt my legs’ll be able to support my weight. And my back…”

Her words faded into a moan as she finally acknowledged how bad her back was.

He sighed deeply, the exhalation emerging on a quiet grunt.

“C’mon, let’s get you inside.”

One of his arms encircled her waist, and the other slid beneath her thighs. And within seconds—in an impressive show of strength—he effortlessly went from a squat to standing upright, with her in his arms.

As if she hadn’t been awed enough by his strength and stamina after all the heavy lifting she’d seen him do already today.

“You don’t have to carry me,” she protested, and he had the nerve to laugh at her. It wasn’t much of a laugh, just an incredulous little huff, but it was definitely mocking.

“What do you propose I do then? Load you into one of the wheelbarrows and push you uphill back to the house?”

“I’m heavy.”

“You’re certainly not light,” he agreed. So rude. “But I’ll manage.”