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morning, princess.”
    Veronica was left alone in the kitchen with only the grandfather clock in the other room for company. She couldn’t believe he’d left her unattended. Of course she wasn’t going to run away without her shoes, but there had to be shoes somewhere in this house. Or a phone.
    She scanned the kitchen, but all she found was a place where a phone used to hang on the wall. Searching the lower level didn’t produce a phone either. She winced every time she stepped on the wrong wooden board, causing a loud creak to sound throughout the house. Luke leaned over the upstairs railing.
    “If you’re looking for a phone, I only have a cell, and it’s locked in my safe in the bedroom.”
    So much for that, but she still had the other plan. She’d have to wait until he fell asleep. Even as she thought it, the prospect of actually making it back to New York sounded awful. So far he hadn’t harmed her. What would be her fate in the city with such limited resources? Though by this point she could stand the humiliation of going back to Joe and begging for her job back, if the job still existed. She could see a credit counselor and get her life back on track.
    If the slow downward spiral from her penthouse to the apartment with the ugly brick view hadn’t changed her thinking, the past week of genuine fear for her ability to survive much longer the way she was going had. Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, and all the other frivolity seemed like just that.
    She turned the knob of the door for the bedroom he’d assigned her. She was still confused that he hadn’t thrown her down and raped her.
    A silver, antique full-length mirror stood in one corner of the room. The wallpaper was a light blue-and-white stripe. The furniture was painted white: a chest of drawers, a vanity, a night stand, and a full-sized bed. The carpet was light blue to match the wallpaper.
    Veronica guessed there was hardwood underneath. For a crazy second she wondered if the carpet covered evidence of something gruesome. The closet, also white, was filled with sundresses for the summer, both long and short, as well as jeans and sweaters for the winter. But no shoes. Not a single pair of shoes was in the closet or under the bed. A chill went down her spine. If she’d had any doubts before, now she knew—Trish had been a prisoner as well.
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    Veronica waited until she heard the even hum of breath from her captor’s room that indicated he’d fallen into sleep. She prayed he was a deep sleeper. She was careful to stay close to the walls, so the hardwood wouldn’t creak. But when she turned the knob and pushed it open, the door gave a loud groan. He turned in his sleep, his breathing pattern interrupted. She stayed frozen in place, barely breathing until his pattern resumed. Then she crept into the room. If there were no women’s shoes, she wasn’t picky. Luke wore shoes. She’d just take some of his.
    The moonlight came into his windows and fell over his face. Damn him and that face. That face had already made her hesitate a few times because something inside her responded to him. His mere presence did everything to her that her every sexual fantasy had done, but she was smart enough to know that the men she invented in her mind didn’t exist—couldn’t exist. She’d wasted enough time figuring that out.
    She hadn’t been out with a man since college. The whole thing seemed pointless. Men slowed you down. They complained when your career was going better than theirs. They wanted you to pop out babies and make sacrifices for the kids because aren’t women all supposed to be maternal? Even in New York, you didn’t have to peel through too many layers in a man to find the caveman underneath. All the equality and supportiveness on the surface was window dressing.
    After her second abortion, Veronica had found a doctor to tie her tubes. He’d been against it at first, but given his conservative leanings and her past