Page 96 of Irish Betrayal

“Blair?” she asked her husband.

“We’re close, my love, but if I see tears one more goddamn time tonight, I’m going to lose my shit. Understood? When I say I’m going to find our daughter, I fucking mean it.”

“You’re right, Coll. I have faith. I do. It’s my failures as a mother that I am questioning.”

“Don’t do that, Kitty Cat,” Coll soothed his wife. “I am to blame for this. I never let any boy near our Blair, but I invited that…that man in.”

Catriona could only shake her head, not wanting that guilt on her husband any more than she wanted it on her own shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Laith whispered, touching his mother’s hand.

“You love your sister, sweet boy. Never apologize for that.” Turning to Daniel, she asked once more what he needed to know.

“Blair, she looks like you,” he waved his hands in front of Catriona, earning an angry look from Coll. “Is she…showing?” What he didn’t voice but everyone surely understood, was if she was showing enough for Peter Samson to notice.

“Yes,” Catriona answered grimly.

forty-eight

BLAIR

Blair woke suddenly, her eyes widening, fear stinging her extremities where they were still tied to the bed frame. She tried not to move. The man at her side appeared to be sleeping, and she didn’t want to wake him.

Her dad had to be close.

Please, be close, Dad.

She couldn’t believe she was able to sleep. Blair wondered if, deep down, her brain was so conditioned to trust Peter no matter what, and that was why she’d been able to nod off.

But that couldn’t be true. She despised him for what he’d done to her. What he was still doing to her. Her body had clearly needed to shut down for a time.

Her eyes felt dry, like she was blinking through sand, and she was thirsty; her only drink had been in the shower. Was that yesterday or two days ago?

She carefully searched the darkened room with only her eyes until the sight before her nearly made her jerk in surprise. There was a whole spread of fast food on the small kitchen table. Blair must have slept longer than she’d thought—and soundly. How terrifying.

Her stomach cramped from hunger. She would have to ask for food. Blair could last longer going without, but her baby needed sustenance. This was Peter’s idea of a power play. He wanted to make Blair dependent on him again, begging for water, food, and the bathroom.

Blair had a flash of Peter waking her up and giving her a drink, but surely that had been a dream her mind conjured.

If he thought she would break like Mindy, he was sorely mistaken. She would never break for him or anyone.

It was dark again. Morning or night, she hadn’t a clue. Peter lay next to her. He must have gotten back into bed after eating. He had one hand pressed over her chest, flattening her to a painful degree. For her sanity, she ignored his touch, though it was harder below.

His chest and stomach were glued to her side, the sticky, hot sweat between them turning her stomach. The worst was his leg curled around hers, placing his penis firmly against her thigh.

When he had first gotten in bed, Blair held still while he moved his hips in the barest increments. Instead of crying and breaking down like she wanted to do, she turned her thoughts inward, where he couldn’t touch her.

Asking herself questions like, “Why did Peter do these things?” She was relieved when he only wanted to hold her. As horrible as it felt, it could have been so much worse, and enduring hours of that meant her family had longer to find her.

If Peter had texted Daniel through her phone and sent that picture of Sutton, Daniel would have known that she hadn’t sent it. She wouldn’t have.

Knowing they were looking for her calmed her racing heart, even though she knew that all of her dirty little secrets would be revealed—possibly already had been—if they went looking into Mindy—and her dad and her uncle Thomas would leave no stone unturned.

Her mind kept coming back to why. Why did he touch her like he did? How could he enjoy, and he must, lying next to her, aroused, and do no more than shift against her?

At least he had pulled a sheet over her lower body and abdomen. He probably did that so he wouldn’t have to acknowledge that she was a woman, no longer a child with her baby bump, small though it was, and the strip of pubic hair she’d grown last year. Against his wishes.

Before he’d gone quiet, he asked her why she had hair between her legs before flipping up the sheet, like the sight disgusted him.