 by Alessandra Hazard.jpg)
Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
That’s who Aiden Gates a straight guy sold to one of the richest men in the world.
What he isn’t is besotted with the cold-hearted, cynical bastard who bought him like a thing. Aiden hates that man. Utterly abhors him.
But before long, Aiden’s obsessive hatred starts turning into an obsession, pure and simple–and then into something far worse.
Wanting that bastard is bad enough.
Needing him is sickening.
His feelings aren’t real. He’s a pretty bird in a gilded cage. A dirty little secret.
But when the cage is eventually broken, can he learn to live without it? Without him?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Elephants.
There was a small herd of elephants stomping all over his head. Or at least it felt like it.
He groaned, rubbing at his pounding temples. Had he had too many drinks last night? He felt nauseated and dizzy. It almost seemed like the ground was moving under him. Speaking of the ground, he was lying on something hard and uncomfortable. Why was he on the floor?
“Hey, you, are you finally awake?”
A female voice. One he didn’t recognize. It definitely didn’t belong to his sister or mother—and he currently didn’t have any other woman in his life. Where was he?
He opened his eyes blearily and turned his pounding head.
A windowless room.
There were eight other people in the room. And the ground definitely was rocking.
Also—his hands were handcuffed together.
Handcuffed.
He stared blankly at the handcuffs.
Unless he’d suddenly developed a penchant for kinky, exhibitionist sex overnight, this was more than a little alarming. He couldn’t remember how he could have possibly ended up handcuffed.
What did he remember?
Aiden. That was his name. He was Aiden Gates, a twenty-year-old, a junior at Northeastern University, the youngest son of Edward and Veronica Gates.
The last thing he remembered was… He’d been… He’d been walking home after hanging out at his friend’s house for a little get-together before Christmas. He remembered footsteps behind him—and then nothing.
“Are you mute or something?” the same voice said.
Aiden shifted his gaze to the person addressing him: a young woman around his age. She was very pretty, with shiny golden hair and wide blue eyes.
She was handcuffed too. Actually, all the other people in the room were, as well.
Aiden really didn’t like the implications.
Fuck, this was too much, even by his standards. He’d always had a history of getting into scrapes. Trouble simply had a way of finding him. His mom never tired of telling the story of how a three-year-old Aiden had toddled out of the house and somehow ended up at the other end of the city. It had gone downhill from there over the years, and Aiden could only laugh at his misfortunes, but this… this was something else.
“I’m not,” Aiden said belatedly, hauling himself into a sitting position, which was unexpectedly difficult without using his hands. “Sorry—it took me a few moments to get over waking up handcuffed in a room full of handcuffed strangers. It doesn’t happen to me every day.”
“Point,” she murmured with a small smile. “I’m Janice.”
“Aiden,” he said, waving his cuffed hands. “I would shake your hand, but…” He took a deep breath and dropped his light tone. “Do you know what’s going on here?”
Janice’s lips pursed. “I’ve been here for two days, so yeah, I’ve overheard some stuff when they brought you guys in. They’re in the human trafficking business.”
Aiden grimaced. He couldn’t say he was surprised. Just his luck, really.
“We’re on a ship, right?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Do you know where they’re taking us?”
Janice’s expression darkened. “They want to sell us in the Middle East. One of them mentioned the UAE.”
Great. What were the chances of them being found halfway across the world?
Aiden screwed his eyes shut. All right, there was no need to panic yet. The authorities might catch these assholes any moment now, for all he knew. It would take the ship, what, weeks to get to the UAE? There was still plenty of time for their kidnappers to get caught.
His family was probably already freaking out.
Aiden winced at the thought, but pushed it away to focus on the more pressing issues.
He looked at the other people in the room more carefully. There were five women, including Janice, and three other guys besides Aiden. All of them were young and incredibly good-looking. And all of them were blond, which was a weird coincidence.
Or maybe not a coincidence at all.
“Is there a reason we’re all blonds?” Granted, their hair color ranged from dark blond to Aiden’s strawberry blond, but still.
Janice wrinkled her pretty nose. “Apparently perverted sheikhs like exotic pets, and natural blond hair is rare and valuable.” She pursed her lips. “Yes, they actually checked if I was a natural blonde. They checked all of us. And never mind that some of us don’t even have hair down there.”
Aiden pulled a face, glad that he’d been unconscious for that.
“Did they say anything else?” he said, trying to ignore the crying girl in the corner. She was the only one crying, but the others didn’t look much better. The guy with dirty blond hair seemed on the verge of crying too, his eyes wide and freaked out, his breath coming in loud, ragged gasps.
“No,” Janice said. “Most of the assholes don’t speak English, so I have no idea what they were saying.”
“Does anyone here know their language?” Aiden said, raising his voice a little.
No one replied.
Sighing, Aiden sagged back against the wall and tried hard not to think about what would happen to them if their kidnappers didn’t get caught.