Page 86 of Protecting You

No answer.

“Try again,” Callan said. “He just doesn’t recognize the number.”

She redialed. It rang four times, then went to voicemail.

Maybe this wasn’t going to work. Maybe Charles had already decided she couldn’t be trusted and had taken off, flown out of the country, never to be seen again.

Except Malcolm had sent a team to surveil the house, and according to the agents posted nearby, nobody had left.

She didn’t look at Callan, not wanting him to see her hope that he wouldn’t answer as she dialed again.

This time, the line connected. “Charles Sanders.”

“Charles, it’s Alyssa.”

A beat of silence followed her words. “I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again.”

“I’m so sorry. I never thought your guys would chase us the way they did. They probably thought we were intruders or something.”

Which of course they hadn’t, but she needed him to believe that she didn’t believe the guards would’ve chased her and Callan if they had known who they were.

Charles didn’t say anything, so she continued talking, not bothering to hide her nervousness.

“I have to say, Charles, I didn’t appreciate the way they tried to keep us from leaving. Caleb thought you’d try to stop us, and I assured him you wouldn’t. But even after the guards knew who we were, they still tried to detain us.”

Still, Charles said nothing.

“Look, you have to understand.” She blew out a breath. “Caleb swore he saw a camera in the hall. Like a small, hidden camera. It freaked him out, and he was so worried that, honestly, I started to think maybe he was right. You can hardly blame us. Your people were acting really weird, keeping watch on us all the time. And, I’m sorry to say this, Charles, but so were you. You asked me to come—no, you didn’t ask.” Her tone hardened a little. “Youdemandedthat I come, and then you sat there and watched me work all day long as if you didn’t trust me. During dinner, Caleb went back to our room to use the bathroom, and he was cornered by two guys who basically threatened him and told him not to wander off on his own again. The whole thing was…disconcerting to say the least.”

“We are security-conscious, as we must be.” Charles’s tone was calm. “You can understand why my men were suspicious when your fiancé was wandering the house alone. And you can’t blame them for wanting to detain you, considering you didn’t exit the front door. They assumed you’d stolen from me.”

“I would never do that. It was nothing like that. It was just that Caleb was freaked out.”

“So you climbed out a second-story window? You left your phone and all your things and ran?”

“He thought we were in danger.”

“Did you think that, Alyssa?”

“What would you think if the situation were reversed? I don’t know what your family was like, but if my family invites someone home, we don’t assign guards to escort them from the bedroom to dinner. That is not normal behavior.”

“Perhaps your people are more trusting than mine.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant the words seriously or as a joke and decided not to respond.

“What does Caleb think about you calling me now?”

“Are you kidding? Do you think I told him? He’d be furious.”

“Then why did you call, Alyssa? The truth now.” He issued that last statement as a command.

She let a few beats pass before lowering her voice almost to a whisper. “You know why, Charles.”

He said nothing, but she wasn’t going to speak again, not until he did. She’d babbled enough and didn’t want to lay the act on too thick. The goal was to make it clear to him that she knew she was trapped.

“Perhaps I do,” he said. “Nevertheless, I’d like you to explain it to me so I know if we’re on the same page.”

“Yesterday, when you suggested I’d probably broken a couple of laws getting information for you, you weren’t wrong. I’d assumed your lawbreaking was like mine,” she said. “Small potatoes. No big deal. But now I think maybe…”

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