What? How? When? ‘Early next week.’ Petr nodded and her heart thumped in terror. She had given him a piece of valuable information. He gestured that she should stand up and she obeyed.

‘You must tell me where you’re going. Otherwise…’

‘Otherwise?’

‘This.’ He grabbed her wounded hand and brought a karate chop down onto the forearm. Laure writhed with pain. ‘And this,’ he said. Bending over he pressed kisses onto her neck and crushed her against him in a brutal grip.

It was then she truly understood that Petr desired her.

Wrenching herself free, she managed to get out, ‘I knew you were capable of many dishonourable things but never that.’

She couldn’t read his expression. Regret? Tenderness? Breathing hard, he stood back. ‘I’m showing you what will happen if you don’t cooperate. It won’t be me who does those things to you. It will be those other men. They won’t spare you. They will hurt you until you pray to die, and then hurt you more. Believe me.’

She was trembling uncontrollably and Petr drove home his advantage. Grabbing her hand, he twisted it hard. ‘This is what will happen. You will come out brutalized and raped.’

The pain drove the breath out of her. Eyes streaming, she doubled over and threw up the brandy. ‘Sorry,’ she said, the vomit trickling over her chin and onto her T-shirt.

She eyed the door.

Mistake.

Petr placed himself between her and it. ‘Do I give you up, or do you tell me what you know and let me deal with the situation?’ He added, almost as an afterthought, ‘No one polices the guards in those places, Laure. In a few minutes the phone will ring and I must have an answer. Where are you going?’

Laure gathered her wits. ‘It’s none of your business but I’m not staying in this country.’

‘So you must have travel plans.’

He knew – precisely and with calculated strategy – how to draw out inferences from questions and answers.

The nausea returned and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

‘Is he worth it, Laure?’

She looked away.

‘I don’t want to do this. But you force the issue.’ Petr picked up the folder and held up a piece of paper in front of Laure. ‘Do you know what this is?’

‘I don’t read Czech.’

‘It’s a certificate of marriage between Michelle Pitt and Tomas Josip, dated a year ago.’

Astonished, Laure stared at Petr. Despite her shock, she managed to say: ‘You’ve been planning this.’

‘I thought I should protect you.’

Strangely enough, Laure believed him. In his way, Petr did wish to protect her.