Free Kidnapping His Bride by Karen Erickson Page A

conversation was awkward and inane and it was starting to make her nervous.
    Maybe this was a mistake, coming to New York with Rafe. She should’ve stayed home. Continued on with her little life like the good girl she tried so desperately to be. Working day in and day out at the family business, helping her sister, listening to Annalisa drone on and on over whatever was bugging her on that particular day. Supporting her mother through crying jags, lamenting how her father didn’t love them anymore. Secretly hoping like crazy her father would finally realize she was a worthy daughter and tell her so.
    And then someday she would’ve found a nice man to marry, someone calm and steady and eager to make her his wife. They would move into a modest house not far from Campioni and her husband would probably come and work with her. They could raise two lovely children in that equally lovely house and live a perfectly lovely existence until they died perfectly ordinary deaths.
    That sounded infinitely, horribly boring.
    She studied the man standing before her. Just looking at Rafe filled her with an unexplainable excitement that bubbled up inside her. Her stomach bounced with nerves, and when he settled that dark, mysterious gaze on her, flashing that devastating smile, her knees literally weakened.
    Yes. She had it bad. Damn it, she’d been a fool to end it with him. But maybe, just maybe, he really could show her that adventure he’d promised. Would he want to though?
    “You know what I want to do?” she asked abruptly, clearly startling him, if his expression was any indication.
    “Please, enlighten me.” He sounded amused, but not in a mocking way, like she was used to when she heard that same tone in her sister’s voice. No, Rafe acted as if he was in on the joke too.
    “I want to go to a huge, loud nightclub, get drunk and dance.” Her stomach tumbled to her toes at her admission and she held her breath, afraid to hear his answer. She hoped he wouldn’t chastise her like Annalisa undoubtedly would.
    “Really.” It wasn’t a question.
    She nodded. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
    “Get drunk and wild and sweaty on a dance floor, surrounded by a huge crowd of strangers? That’s your ultimate dream?”
    When he said it like that, he made her request sound cheap and sleazy. Which admittedly, it was. “I’m being crazy, aren’t I?”
    “Never.” That gorgeous smile didn’t fade. In fact, it grew brighter if that was possible. “Whatever you want, your wish is my command. I think I know just the place to take you. You’ll love it.”
    Excitement coursed through her veins and she clapped her hands together like a child. “Really? Oh.” Reality intruded. “But I have nothing to wear.”
    “I’ll take you shopping,” he suggested.
    “No, I couldn’t ask that of you. It wouldn’t be right,” she started, but he cut her off with a look.
    “I want to buy you something. A sexy little dress, something to show off those long legs of yours.”
    He noticed her legs? “A—all right.” A shrill ring sounded, one she would recognize anywhere. It was her cell phone, and that particular ringtone she’d assigned to her sister.
    Great.
    “My phone,” she mumbled as she went to her purse where it rested on the coffee table and pulled the phone from within. “Hello.”
    “Tell me that note you left us is a lie.” No hi, how are you, my God we’re so worried . Instead, she got typical, bulldoze Annalisa fashion. “Tell me you’re coming back home. That you’ve finally come to your senses and you’re ditching that jerk for good.”
    Cat clutched her phone tight to her ear, not wanting Rafe to hear Annalisa insulting him. “I’m not home. I’m in New York, like I told you I would be.”
    The silence went on for so long, Cat momentarily wondered if her sister had hung up on her. “You’re kidding,” Annalisa finally said.
    “I’m not.”
    “How inconsiderate could you be, leaving us