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any involvement if questioned by Sergei, or more likely, Ivan Orlov.
    Dair’s own reasons for agreeing to come here were harder to understand.
    “Buckle up and hold on,” he now instructed grimly as he turned on the ignition. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride!”
    That had to be the biggest understatement of the evening.
    Dair didn’t switch on the headlights of the vehicle, and the complete blackness outside the windows made it impossible for Kat to know when or if the four-by-four was going to go down and up on the rough forest terrain, and she couldn’t help her gasp of terror every time she saw the dark shadow of a tree looming in their path.
    Even hanging on to the handhold above her head, Kat felt as if her brain was being shaken about inside her skull, and her gritted teeth and clenched jaw weren’t too happy about the situation either.
    “Close your eyes,” Dair instructed after she had given yet another gasp of surprise at those looming trees.
    Like that was going to happen.
    Kat may have lost several weeks of her life in a drug and despair-induced state, but that only made her more determined not to miss a moment more of it. Even the dangerous parts.
    Especially the dangerous parts.
    For the first time in weeks Kat felt truly alive again, the adrenaline pumping through her veins and filling her with a light-headed exultation.
    “You’re enjoying all of this, aren’t you,” she said wonderingly as she saw the grin on Dair’s face.
    He scowled darkly. “Risking my own life to save someone else’s?”
    Dair had saved her life, yes. And with him beside her Kat felt safe for the first time in weeks. Possibly years. Besides which, she was as elated as he was by this wild ride. “Where are we going?” she prompted as she clung even tighter to the handhold.
    “Private airport. Five miles away. I have a private jet fueled and waiting,” Dair dismissed economically.
    Of course he did; they could hardly stay in the New York area. The Orlovs owned New York, knew if someone sneezed in the wrong direction. There was nowhere here for them to hide, nowhere for them to run where the Orlovs wouldn’t find them.
    Which had become the story of Kat’s life since she married Sergei.
    Something she really wasn’t going to think about right now. For the moment she was free, and when the opportunity arose she was going to make a run for it and get as far away from Sergei, Gregori, and Dair as she could. She hated doing that to Gregori, but hopefully she would be able to find some way later on of letting him know she was safe. And it may be a bit ungrateful of her, when Dair had put himself in danger by rescuing her, but it was the only way she could see out of this situation. With her out of the picture, both Gregori and Dair would have deniability, if—when—the Orlovs questioned them about her whereabouts.
    The fact that she and Dair were shortly going to board a plane complicated things a bit, but once they landed in England, she would surely be able to find an opportunity to slip away and go somewhere far away from London?
    In the meantime it would give her the opportunity to see if Dair had any money on him she could ‘borrow’, enough perhaps to see her through the first couple of days, until she found somewhere to hide and a job to pay her own way. At which time she would be able to pay Dair back the money she intended on borrowing from him. She wasn’t fussy about what work she did, and certainly no one would think to look for Katya Markovic working in a café or as a maid in a hotel.
    Maybe she could go to Scotland, or North Wales; she had never been to either place and both of them looked ruggedly beautiful from photographs she had seen of them in magazines. It was—
    “A few more minutes and we should be out on the road—damn it!” Dair swore profusely as they hit a particularly deep dip in the forest floor. “You okay?” He gave her a quick glance once he had the SUV straightened up.
    “Fine,”