“You need to get Gabriella,” Aaron shouted but still Whit could barely hear him over the shrieks and screams of the fleeing people.
Whit flashed back to that woman getting off the bus and heading inside the airport. “Gabby! Is Gabby pregnant?”
“Yes—according to Charlotte’s aunt.”
It was hardly something the woman would have lied about. But how? But when? And whom?
“She’s probably six months along,” Aaron added.
Realization dawned on Whit, overwhelming him with too many emotions to sort through let alone deal with.
Oh, God …
“That’s Gabby …” Inside the airport where shots were being fired.
He shoved the phone in his pocket and reached for his gun before he remembered that he didn’t have one on him. He hadn’t been able to get one on the first plane he’d boarded in Michigan and hadn’t had time to find one here.
Would he be able to save her? Or was he already too late?
Chapter Three
As disguises went, the hat and the glasses were weak. But it had fooled Whitaker Howell. He had barely glanced at her when she’d disembarked from the crowded bus. Of course he had seemed distracted, as he’d been reaching for his phone while moving quickly through the crowd milling from and to the airport.
She’d had to fight the urge to gawk at him. He had looked so infuriatingly handsome and sexy in a black T-shirt and jeans. But the sense of betrayal and resentment and anger overwhelmed her attraction for him. She didn’t want to see Whit Howell much less be attracted to him any longer.
When she’d glimpsed him through the window, she’d thought about staying put in her seat. But since he was probably the one who’d been sent to retrieve her, he would have boarded the bus for the return trip and she would have been trapped.
When Charlotte had become her bodyguard three years ago, that was one of the first self-defense lessons she had taught Gabriella. Avoid confined places with limited exits. And given her girth, the exits on the bus had definitely been limited for her since it wasn’t likely she’d been able to squeeze her belly out one of those tiny windows. So she had gotten off the bus and hurried toward the airport.
That was another of Charlotte’s lessons. Stay in crowded, public places. So Gabriella had breathed a sigh of relief when she’d walked into the busy airport. She needed to buy a ticket for the first leg of the long journey ahead of her. She still had most of the cash Charlotte had given her to travel. She hadn’t needed it at the orphanage. Even though she was using cash, she would still have to present identification. She fumbled inside her overstuffed carry-on bag for the fake ID that Charlotte had provided along with the cash.
She couldn’t even remember the name under which she’d traveled. Brigitte? Beverly? As she searched her bag for the wallet, she stumbled and collided with a body. A beefy hand closed around her arm—probably to steady her.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. She glanced up with a smile, but when she met the gaze of the man who’d grabbed her, her smile froze.
It wasn’t Whit. He had probably already boarded the bus on its return trip to the orphanage. She didn’t know this man, but from the look on his deeply tanned face, he knew her—or at least he knew of her. Most people thought her life a fairy tale; she had always considered it more a cartoon—and if that were the case, this man would have dollar signs instead of pupils in his eyes.
“Excuse me,” she said and tried to pull free of the man’s grasp.
But he held on to her so tightly that he pinched the muscles in her arm. “You will come with me,” he told her, his voice thick with a heavy accent.
She was thousands of miles from home, but it had come to her. First Whit and now this man, who sounded as though he was either from St. Pierre Island or close to it, probably from one of the neighboring islands to which her father had promised her. Well, he’d promised her to their princes, but she would belong to the island, too. Like a possession—that was how her father treated her.
And it was how this man obviously intended to treat her. She glared at him, which, since she’d taken off her sunglasses in the dimly lit building, should have been intimidating. Charlotte hadn’t had to teach her that glare—the one that made a person unapproachable. Gabriella had learned that glare at an early age—from her mother, or the woman she’d always thought was her mother.
The man, however, was not intimidated, or at least not intimidated enough to release her.
So she pulled harder, fighting his grip on her arm.
“Let me go!” she demanded, the imperious tone borrowed from her father this time. No one had ever dared refuse one of his commands, no matter how very much she had wanted to.
The first time he’d offered her as a fiancée she’d been too young and sheltered to understand that arranged marriages were archaic and humiliating. She’d also been friends with her first fiancé—she and Prince Linus had grown up together—spending all her holidays home from boarding school with him.
But the night of the ball her father had broken that engagement and promised her to another man, a prince who’d already been engaged to one of Gabriella’s cousins. So her father had actually broken two engagements that night. He hadn’t cared about the people—not that he’d ever considered her a person—he’d cared only about the politics, about using her to link St. Pierre to another, more affluent country.
The man moved, tugging Gabriella along with him. He pulled her through people—toward one of the wide open doors that led to the airstrip in the back and the private planes. The planes for which a person didn’t need a ticket or even a flight manifest in this country …
And if Gabriella got on that plane, she would probably never get off again. Or at least she would never be free again. Panic overwhelmed her, pressing on her lungs so that she couldn’t draw a deep breath.
Don’t panic.
Charlotte was undoubtedly still thousands of miles away, but it was her voice in Gabriella’s ear, speaking with authority and confidence. And hopefully, in this case, the truth for once.
Gabriella exhaled a shaky breath and then dragged in a deep one, filling and expanding her lungs with air. It was stale and heavy with the humidity and the odor of sweaty bodies and jet fuel and cigarette smoke. There was no airport security to help her. She had to take care of herself.
Assess the situation.
Despite the lies, Charlotte had helped her. Perhaps she had even considered her lies helping Gabriella, protecting her. But Charlotte had known there would be times like this when she wouldn’t be there, so she had taught Gabby how to protect herself.
The man wasn’t much taller than she was. But he was heavier—much heavier even with the extra pounds she was carrying in her belly. Most of his extra weight was muscle. He had no neck but had a broad back and shoulders. And at the small of his back, there was a big bulge. He had definitely come in on a private plane and from some airport with about the same level of security as this one. None.
Choose the most effective mode of protection.
Charlotte had been trained to fight and shoot and had years of experience doing both. She had taught Gabby some simple but effective moves. But Gabriella’s experience using those methods had been in simulated fights with Charlotte, whom she hadn’t wanted to hurt. Then.
A sob caught in her lungs. She didn’t want to hurt her now, either. Or avoid her like she’d initially thought. She wanted to see Charlotte and talk to her, give her a chance to explain her actions and her reason for keeping so many secrets. But Gabriella couldn’t do that if she didn’t get the chance—if