Ultimate Escape Read Online Free PDF Page B

between her breasts. She unzipped it, reached into the second zipped compartment, and retrieved her passport. It was still stiff from disuse, sporting a single stamp, but she held it up as if it were a talisman. And in a way it was, the one thing that might get her out of this mess.
    “See! I have it, so I can just go to the embassy. They’ll help me.”
    She watched Cruz, trying to figure out what was happening behind those intense, unreadable eyes. He moved before she could even process it, and plucked the passport from between her fingers.
    Her mouth dropped open with shock. Without her passport, she had no way to prove her identity, no way to get out of this country. If he had it, she’d have no choice but stay with him. That or take her chances in a foreign country, which he knew she wouldn’t do. He was forcing her hand. But Nola wasn’t giving up so easily.
    Gritting her teeth, she stretched up and grabbed at the document, but Cruz easily lifted it out of her grasp. She shot out of the chair, stood chest to chest with him. He was close, his strong, masculine body dwarfing hers, and Nola didn’t doubt for one instant how easily he could crush her without even breaking a sweat.
    But she didn’t care.
    This was a matter of life or death, and while she was certain he didn’t plan to chop her to pieces, and no matter how handsome he might be, she needed to get the hell out of here, and that passport was her only ticket.
    She speared him with her most intimidating gaze, and he had the nerve to look amused.
    “Give me that back,” Nola said, reaching toward his lifted hand, trying to snatch her passport.
    Swiftly, effortlessly he again pulled it out of her grasp, but Nola was not deterred. She reached again, trying to break the hold his strong fingers had on the paper.
    Doing so proved as impossible as walking home would have been, and seized with a heady rush of frustration, excitement, and fear, she pushed his chest, which was rock hard, something that she was annoyed she even noticed.
    The… jerk had the gall to chuckle. Chuckle! But maybe that was a good thing, because Nola was as afraid and angry as she’d ever been, and maybe that would fuel her, help her draw on reserves she hadn’t known she had and allow her to wrestle the paper out of the iron grip of the mountain of muscle that stood in front of her.
    She launched herself at him, ramming into him with all of her not inconsiderable weight as she reached up for his hand.
    He didn’t move an inch, not a single, solitary millimeter. But he did loop his arm around her shoulders and, with seemingly no effort, held her locked in place, a prisoner between his chest and arm.
    “Sorry, Nola,” he said, voice surprisingly soft and full of regret.
    The softness in his eyes seemed genuine, but that didn’t change the fact that this was insanity. She shifted as much as his hold would allow, her breast brushing against his chest, and turned to face the others.
    “Ace?”
    When he said nothing, she turned her gaze to Sam.
    “I just work the computers, ma’am.”
    She looked between them and then back at Cruz, who, while his eyes were soft, had also clearly not changed his mind.
    “But why? I mean, can we all agree that this is some kind of terrible mistake? I’m a nobody. Entirely insignificant. I shouldn’t even be here,” she said, voice cracking over the last word. “Just let me get to the embassy. Just let me go home.”
    Cruz just shook his head softly, and a heavy weight settled in Nola’s stomach, the cold dread of the truth making her dizzy.
    There was no way around it. She was stuck.

8
    C ruz stole another glance at Nola.
    “She hasn’t moved in the ten seconds since the last time you looked at her,” Sam said as he typed furiously without looking up.
    “Stuff it, Sam,” Cruz returned, but the retort was weak because Cruz knew he’d been busted.
    Nola had lobbied, rather vehemently, in fact, to be dropped off at the embassy. But Cruz had