Saved By The Enemy (Hacienda Heights Book 3) Read online

  Saved By The Enemy

  Emma Roberts

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Introduction

  Don’t count on rescue from a lover-turned-enemy.

  Especially when he’s marrying another woman.

  Captured by my blackmailer, I end up in France.

  But nothing is exotic about being sold at f@cking auction.

  I have to escape.

  It’s all on me now.

  Logan Farraday—my enemy and the only man I’ve ever wanted—can’t save me now.

  But a girl can dream.

  When he turns up, hot on my trail, I can hardly believe it.

  My mission is clear. I have to bring my blackmailer down, for good.

  But this trafficking ring goes deeper than anyone ever imagined.

  The ramifications could be catastrophic, and so could my secret.

  One more mission with the man who makes me burn.

  Can I keep this dangerous man in my bed for good?

  Will we both live to find out?

  Chapter One

  Mina

  Thanksgiving dinner was perfect until it ended up on the floor.

  The homey, enticing scent of turkey and stuffing saturated the air, and I couldn’t help a small giggle when I slipped in a smear of cranberry sauce. Catching myself, my skirt bunched up around my thighs.

  Logan’s answering laugh was a warm, almost touchable sound. It took a lot to elicit that carefree laugh, and I’d ached to hear it even one more time. His deep blue eyes met mine over the mess, and he stuck a mashed potato covered finger into his mouth and licked it clean.

  “Couldn’t wait, huh?” I teased him, threading a hand into Logan’s thick, dark hair. He shivered when my nails scraped along his scalp.

  “You look fucking fantastic. I think I’ll have you for the main course instead.”

  “You’re going to slip in mashed potatoes and break something,” I protested, though I couldn’t put much feeling behind it. The pattern he was tracing into my thigh burned hot like a brand, and I ached for him. If he moved his hand just a few inches farther up, he’d find the lace edge of my panties and just how eager I was for our union.

  Outside, light snow was falling, but the interior of the room was hot, almost muggy. But the hours I’d spent slaving over the stove were long forgotten. I was getting hotter by the second, and I couldn’t even bring myself to be angry about the ruined dinner. I just wanted him so damned badly.

  Logan’s hand slid upward those last few inches, his fingers rubbing me through the lace. I mewled in response, a teasing reprimand dying on my tongue.

  “So wet.” A note of triumph shimmered in his tone. “Is this for me?”

  “No,” I teased. “I just really love cooking.”

  He gave my neck a hard nip, and I let out a gasp. He trailed his lips lower, popping the buttons of my blouse one by one, following the spreading v of the fabric until he reached the last fastening. He parted the silk blouse, allowing it to fall onto the floor to join the mess of Thanksgiving dinner.

  Logan traced the planes of my stomach with his hands, and then bent, following their path with his tongue. Then, without warning, he palmed my ass with both hands and hoisted me onto the table. As he dropped to his knees before me, I was forced to release my grip on his hair and lie back flat.

  He braced his hands on my knees and spread them. Ducking beneath my skirt, he gave me no time to prepare before his tongue delved between my folds. Zeroing in on my throbbing clit before lapping straight up my center. My hips arched off the table. As if expecting the move, he followed, his lips latching onto my already swollen bud.

  Of their own volition, my arms reached for him. I tried to wind my hands into his hair again, but he brushed my hands away, pressing them to the table.

  I fisted the tablecloth desperately. I needed to touch him. Letting my head fall back with a groan, a small, hysterical giggle escaped me when I realized we hadn’t closed the drapes. Our poor neighbors. Dinner and a show.

  My giggles turned into groans of pleasure as Logan slid two fingers into me and used his other hand to lift my bottom, bringing me closer so he could assault my clit with even greater speed and dexterity. His fingers pumped leisurely in and out of me, sending pleasure skittering up my spine.

  My breath was coming so fast, I was dizzy, delirious from the pleasure of it. My legs were shaking, and I tried desperately not to clamp my thighs around his head. Each time with Logan was more mind-blowing than the time before. Almost too much.

  Seconds later, I came apart, convulsing wildly. But the sensation didn’t stop. Logan didn’t stop. The pleasure peaked again and I bowed upward, another orgasm rapidly building. I was going to come again. I was going to—

  “Mina.”

  A soft, familiar voice drifted in, interrupting. I tried to focus on Logan, but the vision of him between my legs faded.

  I craned my neck to spy the figure of a woman in the corner of a dark room. A mass of tangled brown hair hung around her face. Her features were unclear, and I vaguely remembered that was because the room was always so dark.

  She reached over to prod me hard on the shoulder. “Mina, wake up.”

  Another prod, and this time the pain broke through the pleasant dream. I groaned as every muscle protested the shifting of my weight on the hard metal floor. With a sickening jolt, I remembered exactly where I was, and why. Realizing the interlude with Logan had only been a dream, crushing reality poured over me.

  Everything hurt. A bone-deep ache had begun days ago and a sense of apathy had settled over my shoulders like a heavy quilt. I’d kept count of the days though, and this was the fifth that we’d been prisoners on this ship.

  My fingers shook as I pressed them to my dry, cracked lips. My tongue felt rough and bumpy, like a cat's, when I dragged it across my teeth. The less I thought about the grit in my mouth, the better. Usually, the guards were better about giving us water. I could hear the bastards outside, laughing at some joke. I hoped that soon they’d slide open the feeding slot. It was about the size of a small window, with just enough room to slide through a tray of food. Unlike Kathleen or Julienne, my cellmates, I tried to stay near the slot so I could occasionally get a glimpse of the outside. It was worth the risk of the guards’ anger to see what was happening on the ship’s deck.

  The thick, corrugated metal of the shipping crate we resided in didn’t completely insulate us from all sound, and the ventilation that allowed us to breathe also made it possible to eavesdrop if the guards were standing near enough. I’d made sure to pay close attention to the voices I could hear, even if I couldn’t make out what was being said. I’d been tracking time based on the rotation of the guards. There were three sets I’d become accustomed to seeing through the slot, and assuming they took eight-hour shifts, I could reasonably guess what time of day it was, based on who was talking.

  Right now, our guards were Baldy and Pornstache, which meant it was the middle of the afternoon.

  I bit back a groan and rolled up into a half-seated position, bracing my back against the wall. No matter how I slept, the a
che in my back didn’t let up. I was surprised I’d gotten any sleep at all, let alone dreamed of a warm Thanksgiving dinner, given how frigid the container had become. The sheer lace top and thin jeans I’d been captured in offered very little in the way of warmth. I didn’t remember much about the beginning of the journey, only knew I’d been loaded on a ship then transferred to a plane, before ending up in the container on this ship.

  I could have it worse. Julienne had been snatched while wearing nothing but a red teddy and a pair of silk stockings. Of the three of us, Kathleen was the only one wearing decent clothing. From the few glimpses I’d been able to capture when the food was shoved through a slot in the door, she was at least wearing jeans and a sweater. She’d primly informed us her sweater was cashmere. I’d decided she must have been snatched from someplace colder than California since she wore it in the middle of July. The Olympic Peninsula, or Alaska, maybe.

  Julienne’s small, dainty hand settled on my shoulder. “Are you alright, Carmina?” Julienne’s accent grew thicker when she worried. It was fortunate I spoke fluent French, because Julienne could be difficult to understand at the best of times.

  “I’m fine,” I muttered, leaning my head against the side of the container. “And it’s just Mina if you don’t mind. Only my father calls me Carmina.”

  And my kidnapper. She called me by my given name also. The two-faced bitch Isadora Anwick had sold me downriver, quite literally, tricking me into her car before tasering me and handing me off to what I could only assume were human traffickers at the docks of Los Angeles. By the time I’d regained my full faculties, I was already miles offshore, heading only God only knew where.

  “You were making a great deal of noise,” Julienne said slowly. “I thought you might be having a nightmare.”

  My cheeks flushed, and I was grateful for the cover of darkness, so she wouldn’t be able to see me squirm. I would have happily stayed in that dream. It didn’t matter that the love of my life, Logan Farraday, was set to marry another woman. It didn’t matter that he’d smashed my heart to pieces. I would have rather been in his bed, or even arguing with him, than awaiting my fate in this shithole.

  A moment later, I realized that something was off. The voices outside the crate were louder than I’d ever heard them. The flow of air through the ventilation system had ceased, and the air in the crate was growing stale and a little briny. The constant slap of waves against the ship was glaringly absent. All of that could only add up to one thing.

  “We’ve stopped.”

  “Oui,” Julienne muttered. “Should I wake Kathleen? We could still rush the doors as she planned.”

  I shook my head, then belatedly realized she wouldn’t be able to see the movement. “No. I told you, that’s a bad idea. They’ll be armed.”

  Would they shoot us? Probably not. Isadora had gone to great lengths to torment me this past month, threatening the women employed by me—my girls, the Hacienda Hustlers—unless I procured six million from a man who I’d long ago sworn never to speak to again. Surely an easy death was the last thing she’d want for me.

  Before I could say anything more, the door clanked noisily. Behind us, Kathleen gave a jerk and a muffled exclamation.

  The door swung open, the sunlight a stab to the retina after nearly a week of darkness. I cringed on instinct, raising a hand to shield my eyes.

  “Come on, bitches. It’s go time.” The Jersey accent belonged to a man named John, but we called him Baldy. The guard named Vincent, or Pornstache, rarely spoke, but his English had a lilting quality similar to Julienne’s. I was betting he was from the same region in France.

  When I didn’t immediately stand and shuffle toward the entrance, the hulking shape of Baldy pushed past the other man. He lunged forward, seizing my elbow and dragging me out the door and onto the open deck. He jerked me forward and I staggered, slamming into his broad chest face-first, the impact so hard it made my teeth rattle.

  “Where are we going?” Kathleen asked behind me in a quavering voice.

  I didn’t bother with a round of twenty-one questions. Any answers we managed to pry out of them would undoubtedly be false. What I couldn’t seem to communicate to either of my companions was the need for stealth and patience. One too many action movies had convinced Julienne and Kathleen that rushing the guards would be the key to our salvation. I knew from the countless defense classes Logan had insisted on that the best way to escape would be to run. Which meant we needed to find a way to escape en route. I only prayed we’d be given a small sliver of opportunity.

  Pornstache got a grip on both Julienne and Kathleen and dragged them out by their hair. As my eyes became accustomed to the bright sunlight, I got my first true glimpse of them.

  Julienne was the prettier of the two, though she edged Kathleen out by only a small margin. Julienne was tall and willowy, built of soft curves. Her face had an almost ethereal beauty and her mussed hair made her look like she’d been through a night of fulfilling passion, instead of having been trapped in a crate for days on end.

  Kathleen’s hair had been cropped just beneath her chin, and she had the look of Hollywood’s idea of a girl-next-door. Conventionally attractive, but not threateningly so. Her blue eyes flashed with fierce determination as she glared up at Pornstache. I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes, as though she were thinking of ripping the caterpillar off his top lip and feeding it to him. I decided then and there that I liked her.

  Both men were Caucasian and generic-looking, which made me a little nervous. An unusual or even unpleasant face would stick out in a crowd, be memorable. No one was going to single these men out. They could belong anywhere. Could slip through without being noticed, which would make it that much harder for anyone trying to track us.

  I chided myself for even expecting a rescue. Logan and I hadn’t parted well, and I’d forever regret that my last words to him had been a resounding “fuck you.” Logan was probably attending his bachelor party and preparing for his upcoming nuptials, not scouring the globe Liam Neeson style.

  Scanning the deck, I found myself in the midst of a dozen other containers. I could only hope that they weren’t full of more women.

  Baldy wadded something up and threw it at me. I barely had time to raise my hands to catch the bundle of soft material. Blue cotton felt luxurious between my fingers as I stared at the clean blue sundress.

  “You’ll put it on after you’ve showered,” he ordered. “You smell like shit.”

  I bit my tongue to hold back a sharp retort. Of course, we smelled like shit. There’d been one bucket in our crate, three of us, and a roll of toilet paper we had been meant to make last a week. The bucket had tipped more than once. I didn’t want to know how much filth covered my body.

  Pornstache herded us toward stairs that led below deck. The hall was narrow and claustrophobic. When we finally reached our destination, we found a locker room straight out of my private school days. Only flimsy curtains separated the showers, and a cake of soap and small bottle of hotel shampoo set near each drain.

  I didn’t even bother with modesty. After the week I’d had, warm water would be heaven on my aching body. I wriggled out of my clothes and barely paused when I came to my stiff undergarments. I was going to be seen naked at one point or another. The panties came off last, and I strode for the showers, depositing the sundress safely on a low bench against one wall.

  Turning the handle, a jet of hot water shot out and cascaded over my head. The spray pounded into my skin, the water just this side of steaming. I scrambled back from the initial scalding spray, before easing myself back in. After nearly a week without bathing, I’d be willing to scorch my skin to get clean.

  On either side of me, Kathleen and Julienne stepped into their stalls, Kathleen seeming more self-conscious about her nudity than Julienne. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to pretend that I was in the shower at home. The illusion didn’t last long, because Pornstache and Baldy talked in rapid-fire French, each phrase m
ore lecherous in tone than the last.

  From what I could gather, we’d landed in Sète, in the South of France, and we’d be heading in a circuitous route to Toulon, another coastal town. I kept my head down, trying to hide a grim smile. I’d have to keep my eyes and ears open and keep my wits about me. Because when the time came, I’d run. I wasn’t going to die at the hands of these two schmucks, and I was not going to allow myself to be sold to some rich pervert who needed to buy a woman and rape her to get his kicks.

  I had a home to return to, a business to run, and an ex to shake the life from. There was no way in hell I was going to let something like a kidnapping keep me from getting back to Logan.

  What I’d do what I found him? That was anyone’s guess.

  Chapter Two

  Logan

  Phoebe’s mouth hung open in a perfect “O” of surprise as she perched on a chair in front of my desk. Her candy-apple lips twitched, trying to find words. A gamut of emotions crossed her face.

  “You...what?” she said finally, her eyes filling with tears.

  “I’m breaking things off. We’re through, Phoebe. This farce is over.”

  She shook her head, blonde curls bouncing emphatically. “You can’t! Daddy will expose your dirty laundry. You’ll be finished, your billion-dollar business won’t be worth two cents. Are you telling me that you’d rather be bankrupt than married to me?”

  A twinge of guilt stirred in my chest, and my lips curved downward. I winced. Every minute facial expression ached. After being beaten like last week’s beef by Scott Flemming and his lackeys, I’d been lucky to come away with no major injuries. The bruises and cuts hurt like a son of a bitch, but they would heal. Mina was undoubtedly in far worse shape because of my stupidity. Because of my stubborn insistence that marrying Phoebe to avoid the blackmail was the only way.