Page 26 of Tactically Acquired

“I met him while he was home on leave.”

His eyes bugged out. “Home on leave? Audrey, are you fucking insane? You hired some army guy to come kidnap us?”

“Yes, who better to take control? And I don’t know for sure that he was in the army. Not that it’s really important. He has to be able to handle himself, right? Is there really a difference?”

“Is there really a difference? That’s what you’re going with?”

I scoffed at how particular he was being about all this. “You know, it’s not like these things are that important. Do you need to know every detail of his life?”

“Right now? Yes, that would be nice.”

Man, he was just not going to cut me a break on any of this. “Look, I really don’t know. He’s married. I can tell you that much.”

“Oh! He’s married! Well, that sure makes me feel a lot better about this guy. He knows how to kidnap people and drug them, but he’s married, so he must be okay,” Spencer snapped.

“You’re being so dramatic. You were fine with this when I made the plan, and now you’re getting cold feet.”

“Well, when we decided to do this, you made it sound like we’d slip away and go on vacation. Now, people are being drugged and we’re getting kidnapped at an airport! Do you know how many people are at an airport?”

He was losing it. Absolutely going crazy. If he kept this up, there was no way we were ever going to get out of this trip and get a break.

“Spencer, you have to calm down. Just get into character. What would J.D. Brant do?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped. “Because I’m not a fictional character!”

“You played him. Hell, you lived as him for four months. Surely, you can put yourself in his shoes and pretend for a half hour.”

He took a calming breath and went into his meditation mode. I rolled my eyes and did my best not to chastise him for breathing like a crazy person. He did this weird blowing thing where he sucked in a deep breath, then blew it out in one harsh breath to center himself. It was loud and highly annoying, but it seemed to work for him.

“Look, we’re almost there and then everything will be over before you know it.”

But he didn’t say a word. He just kept on with his breathing exercises. Meanwhile, I knew Craig had to be wondering where we were. He told me not to contact him and that he wouldn’t call me on my phone. Of course, I already knew that from the movies I had been in. That would leave a trail and someone might catchon that we knew each other. It would be extremely awkward if the studio were to find out that I hired someone to kidnap me.

The partition between the front and back rolled down and the driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Miss, we’ll arrive in just a few minutes.”

“Thank you.”

I smiled at him as he rolled up the partition again. Smacking Spencer, I gathered up my things, prepared to take off the moment Craig got to us. “Hey, it’s almost time.”

He blew out one last breath and nodded, his hands shaking as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Right. Okay.”

“Are you gonna survive?” I grinned, sliding on my sunglasses.

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Laughing, I gripped his clammy hand in mine. “You’ll do fine.”

“Right. It’s just another movie. It’s all pretend.”

“Exactly. Just do as they say and we’ll be fine.”

He huffed out a sardonic laugh. “Do as they say. It even sounds like a fucking kidnapping.”

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to get out and start walking or not. I assumed Craig would take the lead on this one, so I opened the door and stuck my foot out. We were at a private airport instead of one of the international ones where we never would have gotten away with something like this. As it was, I had a feeling this was going to be a bit of a disaster if Spencer couldn’t keep it together.

As soon as I stood, I found myself glancing around, looking for Craig, which was just ridiculous. If I was going to be kidnapped, I needed to make it appear that I was totally oblivious to what was going on. I slung my purse over my shoulder and stepped aside as Spencer got out, buttoning his suit like a GQ model on the runway. Damn, he was so sexy.

I slid my arm into his, winking at him as we headed toward the plane where Woody was waiting.

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