Chapter 7
Sophia
The Kidnapping
My eyes weren’t open yet, but I knew something was off. Mostly because I had no clue where I was and my mind was trapped in an odd sort of haze. One that made even remembering the last time I’d opened my eyes difficult.
“Mornin’, darlin’.” I whimpered at the sound of Grant’s voice, the vibrations making my head throb. “Take it real easy.”
I licked my dry lips, finally finding the strength to open my eyes. A dim light filtered in, shooting pain throughout my head.
Great. I’m hungover.
At least I hadn’t gone home with some random guy.
As my brain tried to remind me that mindset was wrong, seeing as I was engaged, I couldn’t find a damn to give about it.
Not in the groggy state I was in. If he’d done more than taste my pussy last night, then that was on drunk Sophia, not the version of myself I currently was.
I groaned and scorned that thought, too. That’s not how it works and you know it.
“Aspirin,” I murmured, pinching my eyes closed. “Please.”
He let out a deep sigh, then muttered something my fuzzy head was unable to comprehend. Either way, I didn’t hear movement or shuffling, no sign he was getting what I’d asked for, though my eyes were still closed. Fine. I’ll get it myself.
Only, I couldn’t.
That’s when I noticed something was keeping my wrists together. My eyes snapped open, fighting past the biting pain of the light as my pulse hammered angrily near my temples.
“Easy, Sophia.”
“What—” My brows scrunched as I tried to focus on my legs. Yep, those were tied together, too. Right at my ankles, with…a belt? I tried to separate my wrists, the movement making the room spin.
“Try to relax, darlin’.”
I coughed, shaking my head. “H-how…w-what—”
“You’re in my room, and you’re safe. Try not to—” In my struggle to wriggle free, I’d inched dangerously close to the edge of the mattress. Grant was kneeling on the floor in front of me, his grey eyes soft but his jaw tight. “Don’t move so much.”
“Untie me,” I demanded as the pulse in my ears became chaotic, creating an uncomfortable thump that made the room spin more. “This ain’t funny, Grant.”
“Wasn’t shootin’ for funny,” he replied, then stood to adjust me back onto the middle of the bed with gentle movements.
Grant ran a hand through his hair when he was through, checking me over before bending to take my hands in his.
When his thumb grazed the black bandana holding my wrists together, I believed he was going to tighten the knot.
Instead, he lifted it gently, searching the skin beneath.
I jerked my hands up, aiming for his nose, but he quickly evaded the hit.
The concerned creases that had been lining his eyes dissipated as he smirked. “You’re quite the live wire, aren’t you?”
I scowled. “Thought you said somethin’ about the only way someone should touch me is if it makes me come.”
“Do you want me to make you come? Because I’d be more than happy to suck my fingers clean of you again. It’s been too long.”
Blood flooded my cheeks. So that’s what had happened that night? Did that mean nothing happened last night? No. Don’t focus on that shit right now, Sophia.
“I don’t need marks on my skin to call the cops and tell them what you’re doing to me.”
“Is that what you said to the last asshole who touched you and left you with something to remember him by?” I turned my head away from him, and my throat tightened as a bottle of water flashed in my vision.
Grant’s steps were light, treading softly as he moved to the other side, putting him right back in my line of sight again.
He eyed the bottle, then me. “If you want that, you’ll have to let me help you. You okay with that?”
“Fuck you.”
“Figured.” Still, he reached for the bottle, then glanced around the nightstand. He made a tsking sound, then set the bottle back down. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
“Is that a fucking joke?” I shifted in my restraints, making him smirk again.
“Kinda.” He chuckled as he left the room, leaving the door of his bedroom wide open. His footsteps didn’t go far before stopping, and the sounds of what I pictured were drawers started to open and close. The fact that I could hear his every move meant wherever I was was rather small.
Something I’d gotten used to when I fled Texas and moved into an apartment in Georgia was the noise, and how a smaller space made constant sounds—plumbing in the walls, car horns outside the windows, and when Lyra had moved in, I knew the moment she was home because you could hear the door opening and closing from anywhere inside.
His room was about the same—small, simple.
Only the necessities. Nothing was crammed together.
The only pieces of furniture I could see were a platform bed, two nightstands, a small dresser pushed up against the opposite wall, and a sitting chair close to that.
Another door, probably leading to a closet, was on the other side of the dresser and was closed, with a knob that had a hole for a key.
I wondered what the need for that was until Grant came back, holding a straw in his hand.
“Figured I had one somewhere. Gotta love fast food extras.” The bed dipped beside me as he sat.
“It’s brand new. Never touched.” As he twisted the top, breaking the seal, I bit my tongue back from asking why the fuck that mattered.
While he set the straw inside and held it in front of me, it finally clicked.
The water at the bar. The way he’d ordered it for me and looked at it every time I took a sip. The way he’d leaned in to me—that was probably when he slipped whatever was still in my system into my drink.
“You…you put something in my water last night?” A stone, heavy in my gut, started to rise into my throat.
“Drink first, talk next,” he said, pushing the straw closer to my lips.
I laughed, full-on burst into laughter. A laugh that turned to tears, at first from laughing so hard, and then from something else. Something that made shameful memories rise to the surface.
“Ativan can sometimes mess with your…emotions,” he said calmly as his thumb slid along my cheek, wiping away tears. “Drink. It’ll help.”
As much as I wanted to tell him to shove his own boot up his ass, my mouth turned more parched at the sight of the water inches from my face. I eyed him warily as I leaned forward and took a sip, then another.
“Atta girl,” he purred as I continued, taking in the cold liquid. “Not too much, though. Small sips. Better for the nausea.”
As he mentioned it, I let go of the straw and felt that stone fight its way further up my throat, rolling up the back of my tongue. I gagged and forced it down, shifting my focus back to him. “Talk,” I demanded, scooting back on the bed and away from him as best as I could.
He cleared his throat and set the bottle back on his nightstand. “Where was your fiancé last night, darlin’?”
I pressed my thumbnails into the pads of my fingers as nerves replaced nausea. “What do you mean?”
Grant’s head dipped down, shaking back and forth as he chuckled. When he righted himself, his cold grey eyes had turned to steel. “Don’t play with me. Where is Walton Gregory Buchanon the Third?”
“How—” I worried down on my bottom lip. “How do you know about him?” I managed to get out.
“Peach, who the hell do you think the Ativan was initially for?”
My lips popped open. “I…why?”
Grant's head cocked, then he lifted a finger as he pulled out his phone and started flipping through it.
When he found what he wanted, he held it up to me.
My forehead pinched hard as I looked at a photo of Walton and I at a gala, him in a suit, looking every bit the opposite of Grant, while I was in a fancy dress that cost probably more than his truck did.
“I…I don’t understand.”
His jaw flexed as he flipped to another, and another. All similar photos from the last two months, only from different events. Eventually, a giant diamond appeared on my finger, but neither of us looked any different than stone-faced and ready for a camera opp. The epitome of high class.
“See what I’m seein’?”
“No,” I replied. “I—”
“Look closer.”
He held up the phone, flipping through them slowly for me all over again. “That’s Walton. And me. And…and that’s it.”
“That’s it?”
I waited for a beat before nodding slowly. “Yes?”
“That’s not it.” He zoomed in on a photo of Walton and I until it was only me left on the screen. “Tell me why you’re covering every inch of your skin in all of these photos, all the way up to your neck sometimes, when you live in Texas and it’s hot as fuck right now there.”
I peered at the photo, caught up more-so by the ring on my finger while a fake, half-assed smile graced my face. That odd laughter returned and bubbled out from my throat, but Grant’s face remained hard and unforgiving as he slid his phone back into the pocket of his jeans.
“Now it seems you’re the one aimin’ for funny, even when it ain’t.”
“This is a joke.”
He threaded his fingers together, resembling an authority figure. “It’s not.”
“It’s cold at those galas,” I stated flatly.
“The women in the back are all showing their bodies. Some wearing things that are see-through while others expose their chests and backs. So, Sophia, tell me the real damn reason why you were covering your gorgeous fucking body every time you left your house.”
“You only showed events,” I replied curtly.
“You want me to pull up the pictures of you with your hair in a bun, but the rest of you covered? The hoodies and sweatpants you step out wearing? There’s not one photo of you in a bikini on the beach or at a pool with your new fiancé, like the rest of your socialite friends. Tell me why.”
“I’m self conscious."
“I’d accept that as truth if I hadn’t seen you in short-shorts and a tight shirt before you left. Try again.”
“Maybe I have private pools.”
“At which estate—Walton’s in Dallas, the one you have in Houston, or your parent’s estate that’s right down the street from yours?”