Behind the Facade Read Online Free PDF Page A

she had inadvertently
inspired in him. She hadn’t thought she could be more afraid of this man.
      Staring at him, her eyes blossoming with terror, she opened her
mouth to scream when his next action surprised her, cutting off the scream that
had already started whistling from her throat . He
simply secured the belt under her breasts and then around her arms, pinning her
firmly to the seat. He then leaned away from her to scrutinise his work.
Satisfied she was completely immobilised he looked up into her face. 
      Pale, with patches of mud on her face and neck from her
encounter with the ditch, she was far from the blithe, immaculately groomed
girl she had been. Her hair hung limply and was sticking in damp tendrils to
her cheeks and her dress was twisted and dirty. His eyes were drawn to her
mouth, which seemed swollen. A trickle of blood had escaped from a small lesion
on her bottom lip. Even in such a state, in fact almost because of it, he was
struck by how starkly beautiful she was.
      He hastily looked away and down at her hands, disconcerted by
the effect she had on him. How had she possibly managed to free herself from
her bonds? He lifted her hands to see if he could determine how she had
liberated them. Weak, she still tried to pull away. He held firm and when she
cried out in pain he turned them over to examine her wrists and swore.
      Contemplating the damage to them he clicked his tongue against
his teeth, noting how sore and red her skin was. “ Jaysus ! You’re a piece of work,” he commented, the
Irish burr strong in his voice.
      She looked up at him, tears welling in her frightened eyes.
“Please,” she whispered, “please don’t hurt me.”
      He dropped her hands and regarded her. It must have taken some
courage to attempt the escape. He was momentarily struck by admiration.
However, he could not afford to take pity on her, especially when he found her
unnervingly attractive and was in danger of letting this influence him.
    “Pull any
more stunts like that last one and I won’t be responsible for my actions. Do
you understand?”
    She
raised her head at this and gave him a look of hollow hopelessness. “Why should
I do as you say? If I don’t try and tell someone about that bomb before you set
it off, who will?”
    She
thought him some kind of psycho. He couldn’t bear the recrimination he saw in
her face and the fictitious bomb threat was now fuelling her desire to escape.
      “There is no bomb,” he admitted suddenly.
    “You’re lying,”
she countered immediately. But somehow the way he had announced this sounded
sincere.
    “No,” he
said “Really. I’m not. I had my own reasons for entering that building, none of
which were to do with planting a bomb.”
      “Why… why lie?” she asked, puzzled and struggling to come to
terms with this unexpected revelation and what it might mean.
    “What
other means did I have at the time of making sure you’d co-operate? Besides,
I’m Irish. It didn’t take much to convince you that I was a terrorist, did it?”  
    She could
not think of anything to say to this, accepting his logic but left wondering,
if there was no bomb, why had he been there? Why had he kidnapped her? He was a
dangerous man. He’d clearly been up to something in Robert’s building he wanted
no-one to know about. She could only surmise that he had been committing some
other crime.
    “What
about Rob?” she asked. “What did you do to him? Is he OK?”
    He
frowned, not immediately sure to whom she referred.
    "My
fiancé," she pressed. "He went into the building. I thought it was
him returning when..." she trailed off as comprehension dawned in his
eyes, followed by a black look she translated as meaning bad news.
    "Is
he dead?!" she cried, suddenly desperate.
    Sean
looked at her, debating whether to be truthful on this point. In the end he
simply pressed his lips together and shrugged. "He got in the way."
    She
interpreted this as he intended her to and