Temptation to Submit by Jennifer Leeland Page A

shallow, and Tori found herself breathing with her.
    Betty opened her eyes. “Tori,” she whispered.
    “I’m here, Mom.” Tori took her hand.
    “I’m sorry, baby.” Betty’s voice was weak. “I’m so sorry.”
    “It’s okay, Mom. It really is.” And all of sudden, it was. All those years of resentment and anger were still there, but she knew her mother had been sick, not malicious. Betty hadn’t meant to be a drug addict. Nobody meant to be one. And she sure as hell hadn’t meant to get cancer.
    That night, her mother slipped away.
    Tori was numb. For almost an hour, she sat beside her dead mother and couldn’t move. Finally, Nancy put an arm around her.
    “Come with me, darling.”
    Tori couldn’t do anything. Thank God she’d arranged everything beforehand. Nancy took care of the phone calls. The following eight hours were a blur. She called the office and left a message, unable to deal with Finch directly.
    She called Nell and told her she’d be taking two weeks off and deflected questions. Nell, of course, thought Tori was running from Finch. Gina called twice but, being Gina, didn’t press for answers.
    Three days after her mother died, all the immediate business was taken care of, and everyone was gone. Tori faced the day alone, realizing that she had no desire to call her aunt to share her grief and that she felt completely isolated from the world.
    After everything that had happened, she wanted to curl up on her bed and never get up. She forced herself to shower and grabbed her purse as she headed out to the store. After all, she had to eat something. The last three days had been difficult, and she hadn’t eaten much.
    Tori winced at the bright light from the sun and fumbled with her keys. She couldn’t feel anything, not even anger. Why would her mother’s death stymie her this way? In Tori’s life, she’d been dead for years. It made no sense that now, the reality of Betty’s death would be harder to accept than the lie she’d lived. Even now, she wanted to deny it, to tell herself that Betty wasn’t really dead; it was just another story that Tori had to tell.
    She started to open her car door, and seemingly out of nowhere, someone slammed it shut. When she started to turn, her eyes were covered with a blindfold.
    “Don’t make a sound.” Finch. It was Finch.
    “What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” she snapped as she struggled to escape him.
    “Probably.”
    He strong-armed her, and she heard the sound of a van door opening before he shoved her inside. The carpet under her knees was soft. She wondered if the bastard kept the vehicle for the specific purpose of kidnapping his victims.
    She should stop him. They’d agreed on a safe word. Part of her wanted this, needed it. The excitement, the danger that wasn’t dangerous at all gave her the adrenaline rush and fear she craved.
    Fighting him was part of the exhilaration. She opened her mouth to call him a fucking bastard and immediately found her voice stopped by a ball gag. It stretched her lips, and she hissed and spit, struggling to adapt to its discomfort.
    He gripped her wrists and tied them with something plastic, binding them behind her back. When she kicked out at him, he grabbed her right ankle and tied it to her left. She was helpless.
    The van door closed, and she heard him start the engine. She twisted and struggled, trying to wiggle her hands out of the restraints. She kicked her feet against the barriers around her, hoping one of them was the back of his seat.
    She wasn’t sure how long they drove. It seemed like forever. She cursed him, her words muffled by the gag. She cursed her mother. She cursed her aunt.
    Finally, she lay there, limp, numb. It felt like being dead.
    The van stopped, and the door opened. He’d said nothing to her other than to acknowledge that he might be crazy. Not exactly reassuring.
    But even as she had that thought, she remembered the contract she’d signed. The ball gag, the