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Caroline woke up in her bedroom on Thursday morning with a splitting sore head and her wrist handcuffed to her headboard. She stared at the silver cuff for a minute in disbelief then took a deep breath.
“Josh!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
She heard his slow stomp as he came up the stairs to her bedroom. She should never have given him a key to her house. Oh, but wait. She didn’t give him one. He stole it.
“You rang.” Josh leaned against her bedroom doorframe.
He was dressed in romance novel classic, as Caroline liked to think of it: faded blue jeans and nothing else. He folded his arms across his bare chest and crossed his bare feet at the ankles. He was the image of relaxed sadist.
“Get this thing off me.” Caroline jangled the cuffs.
“Nope. You can’t be trusted. You’re a danger to yourself and you don’t listen to me.”
Caroline pushed her hair out of her eyes and glared at him. “You mean I won’t do what I’m told.”
The idiot actually had to think about that. “That too,” he said.
She took a deep breath. It didn’t help, so she took some more. After about half a dozen she felt able to talk to him without her head rotating 360 degrees, like something from a horror movie.
“Josh”—she used her best “let’s be reasonable” tone—“you need to take these off me. I need to go to the bathroom.”
There, he couldn’t argue with that.
“I can bring you a bucket.” His smile was wicked.
Caroline knelt up on the bed and pointed at him. “I’m being serious. You can’t handcuff me to the bed. What are you? A barbarian? Take these off this minute or I’ll call the police.” She eyed the phone on her bedside table.
“Where do you think I got the handcuffs? I explained to Officer Donaldson that you wouldn’t listen to me and I couldn’t trust you to stay where you were put. I made it clear that this was a safety issue. He was happy to help. He wants you safe too.”
Caroline felt the top blow off her head. “Stay where I’m put? Stay where I’m put?” Her voice rose to that scary high-pitched level that only dogs could hear. “When I get out of here, Josh McInnes, you are going to be so sorry. I’ll give you one last chance to do the right thing, otherwise you are really going to regret this.”
Josh shrugged like her threat meant nothing. “I’m making eggs. I’ll come back when you’re more reasonable.”
With that he thumped back down the stairs. Caroline stared after him mutely. She couldn’t believe he’d left her. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t done what he was told. Furious, she reached for the phone beside her bed. There was no dial tone. She screeched in frustration before slamming the phone back down.
“Now, if you’d kept your cell phone with you like I told you to, you could call someone right now,” Josh called from downstairs.
Caroline wanted to hit him so badly it actually caused her physical pain. He was so dead when she got loose. She’d never been one to hit people, preferring mental torture to physical, but Josh brought out her violent side. She planned his punishment while she fumed.
“And another thing.” Josh’s voice interrupted her planning. “I found your stolen sex books. We’re going to have a nice long chat about that later.”
Caroline screamed in frustration and threw the useless phone through the open door.
“She is going to kill you when she gets free.” Mitch sipped coffee at Caroline’s tiny kitchen table.
Josh shrugged. “I should have done this weeks ago. Her ‘ruler of the world’ mentality is going to get us all in trouble. If she’d been contained we wouldn’t have needed the roadblocks, or the domino boys. We wouldn’t have Danny bouncing back into town to chat with her. There wouldn’t be any crazy gifts being sent to her work—well, not that she knew about, anyway. It would have all gone a lot smoother.”
“You’ve lost your mind, you know that, right?”
“You’re not telling me anything new. You said that to me when I proposed.”
“Yeah, but this is further proof.”
Josh concentrated on the omelette he was making. In a little while he’d go back upstairs for round two with Caroline. Maybe by then she’d be so desperate for the toilet that it’d make her more reasonable.
Josh eyed his best friend. “You didn’t send Lake’s guy away when you came inside, did you?”
Mitch looked at the ceiling for a beat. “Don’t worry, I won’t do that again.”
Josh grunted. Lake had a guy at the front door of Caroline’s house and one at the back. There wasn’t much space between her doors and the public footpaths, but at least the bodyguards were keeping the press back. Josh had also closed all the curtains in the house. It was as private as a tiny terrace house could be. Thankfully, Lake’s men were also dealing with the neighbours, who had come either to find out what was going on or complain about what was going on. That left Josh with one responsibility—Caroline.
“I snuck out of the castle to get away from you,” Caroline shouted. “Can’t you take the hint?”
“So”—Mitch leaned over to grab the coffee pot for a refill—“what exactly is the plan here? I’m assuming you have a plan. Right?”
“Absolutely.” Kind of. Maybe.
“You want to share the plan with your best friend, lawyer and manager?”
Josh plonked two plates full of food on the table. It was man food. Meat. Eggs. None of that vegetable or bran garbage. Nothing you would feed a gerbil. He sat in the chair beside Mitch.
“The plan is to convince Caroline that her life can’t go on as usual. She has to make changes. She has to take her safety seriously. And she has to realise that her choices affect more than her—they affect me and my career as well.”
“That sounds great,” Mitch drawled. “I’m sure she’ll be eager to change everything about her life.”
“She needs to see reason.”
“And how are you going to get her to do that? Tickle her until she submits?”
Unfortunately, that was the part of the plan he wasn’t so clear on.
“Look”—Josh put his fork down and took a gulp of his coffee—“she could have been hurt yesterday. She can’t go out alone. Even if her crazy voodoo stalker doesn’t go after her, there’s still the press. You know as well as I do that dealing with them can be terrifying. The paparazzi want her to crack under the pressure. It’s exactly the kind of picture they could auction off.”
“Hey”—Mitch held up his hands in surrender—“you’re preaching to the choir.”
“You’ve got a visitor,” the guy on the door called through.
“Who is it?” Josh shouted back.
“Archie McPherson.”
“Archie?” Caroline shouted. “Archie, I’m being held prisoner. I need help.”
Josh ignored her as he sauntered to the front door. Archie was shutting it behind him. He cast a curious glance in the direction of the stairs.
“I came to check on the lass,” he said.
“Archie, get up here and set me free. Josh has me handcuffed to the bed.”
Archie grinned at Josh. “You’re a kinky son of a monkey, aren’t you?”
Josh grinned back.
“This has nothing to do with sex,” Caroline shouted. “He’s trying to inflict his will on me. He won’t let me have a mind of my own. He’s locked me up because I won’t do what I’m told.” They heard the cuffs rattling as she banged about. “Archie McPherson, get up here right now and set me free, or I swear on Granddad’s grave I will hurt you along with Josh once I get out of these things.”
Archie’s eyebrows rose so far up his forehead they disappeared under his grey cap. “She’s furious.” He was awestruck.
“Spitting mad,” Josh agreed.
The old man leaned in towards Josh and lowered his voice. “She never loses her temper. She usually gets all icy and freezes your balls off with something she says.” He removed his cap and scratched his head. “I’ve known her since she was a wee girl, and I’ve never seen her angry.”
“Welcome to my world—in it she’s mad all the time.”
“Archie McPherson,” Caroline shouted. “I’m going to count to three, and if you aren’t up here by then there’s going to be trouble. One.”
The two men looked up the staircase.
Josh shook his head in wonder. “I’m not sure what she thinks she’s going to do to us.”
“Aye.” Archie sounded bewildered.
“Two!” Caroline’s voice rose an octave.
Archie shuffled his feet. “Well, I can see you have everything in hand here. I’d best be getting on. I’m guessing Donaldson knows about the cuffs.”
“That’s where I got them.”
A slow, wicked smile lit up Archie’s face. “Tell Caroline I dropped by and I’m glad she’s well.” He put his hat back on his head. “And tell her not to forget about the boiler that went kablooey.” With a laugh, he opened the door.
“Three!” Caroline screamed. “That’s it, Archie McPherson. You are on my list. You are number two on my list.”
“Good luck, son.” Archie slipped out the door.
Josh sauntered back into the kitchen to finish his breakfast, only to discover Mitch had already eaten it.
Josh swatted him on the back of the head. “Don’t you have somewhere to go?”
“Nope.” Mitch reached for the coffee again.
“Someone needs to deal with the wedding planner now that Caroline is indisposed.”
Mitch’s eyes lit up. “Now that you mention it, the delectable Millicent could probably use a hand.” He put the coffee pot back in its stand. “Don’t you just love an English accent?”
Josh smiled knowingly. “I’m partial to Scottish, myself.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” Caroline shouted. “If you don’t release me, there will be an accident.”
“Okay, I’m out of here.” Mitch headed for the front door. “Don’t worry about the wedding. I’ll deal with Millicent. I’ll tell her Caroline is tied up at the moment.” With a grin, he put on his sunglasses and left.
“I can’t hold it much longer. Josh, get your backside up here right now.”
With a chuckle, Josh trotted up the stairs to his fiancée.