They can’t be.

Catching me looking at her, Nora gives me a tentative smile. “What are you working on?” she asks, placing her book face down on her lap. “Still the drone design?”

“No, baby.” I force myself to focus on the fact that she came for me in Tajikistan—that she loves me enough to do something so insane—and my mood begins to lift, the lingering tightness in my chest fading.

“What is it then?” she persists, and I smile involuntarily, amused by her inquisitiveness. Nora is no longer content to be on the fringes of my life; she wants to know everything, and she’s growing bolder in her quest for answers.

If this were anyone else, I’d be annoyed. With Nora, however, I don’t mind. I enjoy her curiosity. “I’m going over a prospective investment,” I explain.

She looks intrigued, so I tell her that I’m reading about a biotech startup that specializes in brain chemistry drugs. If I decide to proceed, I would be a so-called angel investor—one of the first to fund the company. Venture capital is something that’s always interested me; I like to stay on top of innovation in all kinds of fields and profit from it to the best of my ability.

She listens to my explanation with evident fascination, those dark eyes of hers focused on my face the entire time. I like it, the way she absorbs knowledge like a sponge. It makes it fun for me to teach her, to show her different parts of my world. The few questions she asks are insightful, showing me that she understands exactly what I’m talking about.

“If that drug can erase memories, couldn’t it be used to treat PTSD and such?” she asks after I describe to her one of the startup’s more promising products, and I agree, having arrived at the same conclusion just minutes earlier.

I hadn’t anticipated this when I kidnapped her—the sheer enjoyment I would get out of spending time with her. When I first took her, I saw her solely as a sexual object, a beautiful girl who obsessed me so much I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts. I didn’t expect her to become my companion as well as my bedmate, didn’t realize I would enjoy simply being with her.

I didn’t know she would come to own me as much as I own her.

It really is for the best that she remembered to take the pill. Once we’re both healed, our life can go back to normal.

Our normal, at least.

I will have Nora with me, and I won’t let her out of my sight ever again.

It’s dark when we land. I lead a sleepy Nora off the plane, and we get in the car to drive home.

Home. It’s strange thinking of this place as home again. It was my home when I was a child, and I hated it. I hated everything about it, from the humid heat to the pungent smell of moist jungle vegetation. Yet when I got older, I found myself drawn to places just like this—to tropical locations that reminded me of the jungle where I grew up.