Chapter Four

he woman stared at Sonny in the dim light in the room caused by the approaching of dawn. She would have to leave him soon. If he should awake and see her face he would recognize her and she wasn't ready for that, yet. She wondered if he would remember telling her he loved her as they made love. She wondered if he would realize that his body and heart had known exactly who he'd been making love with all night long, even while his mind still rebelled from the knowledge of it. Probably not since this was Sonny. Nothing was ever that easy with him.

She should just reveal herself to him and that was exactly what she had been planning to do when she went to the wedding, but after seeing the way he'd reacted to Carly lying about being dead, she was too afraid to reveal herself to him, yet. She'd just gotten him back. She wasn't ready to lose him all over again. What they needed was to be together and to spend time together to rebuild the connection they once shared. It was still there between them. He had felt it the instant she had walked into Jake's before he'd tried to shake it off and ignore it. They just needed time to be together and get to know the people they were now. Then once they had back what they had lost, she would reveal herself to him and tell him everything. But how long would Sonny let her hide behind her veil and conceal her identity from him. The fact that Sonny was being so malleable at the moment could be due to the left over effects of the drugs she had given him. What would she do if he decided to leave her when the new day dawned? How could she make him stay with her if he wanted to go? And how much time did they really have before their time ran out.

She knew Carlos Montoya had his men out looking for her, another reason she had concealed her identity when she had come to the church. If he found her, he would make her come back to him, and if he found out what she and Sonny had done together this night he would kill them both. When she told Sonny everything she risked losing him, the same way Carly had when he learned about all of her deceptions. She'd finally gotten him back. She didn't think she could bear to ever let him go, again.

arlos Montoya listened to his men's report on the search he had launched for his missing lover. So far they had come up empty-handed. She seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

Carlos could see the way his men were looking at him. He could see they thought he was so enthralled with her, that he was obsessed with finding her and putting his pleasure before his business. Little did they know it wasn't having her back in his bed that was fueling his determination to find her, it was to reclaim what she had stolen from him when she had left.

Before the bitch has run out on him, he seethed just thinking about it, she had stolen a fortune from him. One of his associates had just delivered to him a suitcase full of money from a drug buy that had just gone down, They had left it with him for him to launder it through his organization. If they found out about it, they would kill him, so he had to get it back, and that meant getting her back in the process. If she hadn't had taken the money with her when she left, to save face with his men for his woman walking out on him, he would have still sent someone to bring her back, but he wouldn't be applying the urgency to the matter that he was now. He was running out of time before his associates found out he'd lost the money that had been entrusted to him. If he didn't recover it soon and fulfill his committment, he knew he'd be breathing his last.

The growing fear he felt as the mental clock he could hear ticking off how much time he had left in his head made him explode at his men for their incompetence. How could well-trained men not be able to find one woman, he demanded to know.

"All is not lost, Senor Montoya." One of them cowered in fear of his anger. "We may have a lead."

"What is it?" He snarled. "Spit it out."

"When we searched her room again for some kind of clues she might have left behind." He stammered. "We found this." His hand shook as he held out a picture to Montoya. It was the picture of a man. "She had it tucked away in a secret hiding place in her room where she thought no one would find."

Then the other man piped up. "I know the man, sir." His voice shook. "I recognize him. His name is Sonny Corinthos." Both shook in terror of informing their boss that his woman had most likely run off with another man.

"Yes." Montoya paced the floor thoughtfully. "She was always bringing his name up in conversation. Always asking any of my associates that she met if they had any dealings with him or had seen him recently. It was almost as if she was trying to find out his whereabouts." He handed the picture back to his men. "If you find him, I'm sure you'll find her, as well."

"Yes, senor." They both nodded. Then one swallowed deeply before asking the question they both dreaded. "And when we find her, senor? What do you wish us to do if we should find her in Mr. Corinthos' bed?" They awaited his answer with baited breath.

"Nothing." He told them with a lethal smile. "I will be the one to do it. If she has taken Corinthos into her bed, I will kill them both, and take great pleasure in doing so." But not before I make her tell me where my money is first, he thought silently to himself. "Now be off. Find Sonny Corinthos and find me my woman, and don't come back until you do."

onny woke up much in the same way he had the day before. Disoriented, naked in a strange bed and the mysterious veiled woman sitting in a corner watching him as he had slept. While his body was still enjoying the effects of the strenuous love making from the night before, he had woken up in quite a temper. He still didn't understand why he had made love to her, especially in light of all this woman had done to him. For all he knew she was some kind of psycho Glenn Close wannabe who had seen all the stories about him in the newspapers and decided to abduct him for reasons only she knew and understood. He couldn't shake the feeling that last night wasn't the first time he had made love with this woman. The way she had touched him was not the touch of a stranger but of someone who knew his body well and had touched it many times in the past. She had known exactly how he liked to be touched and where he liked to be touched the most. Then a horrifying thought suddenly occured to him.

What if the woman was hiding her identity because she was Carly. What if she had followed him from the church and drugged him in yet another one of her unending plans. He studied the woman trying to see through her disguise. Could that actually be Carly under that black dress and veil? Had she done it to him, again?

Then a flash of memory zipped through his mind. He remembered seeing a figure dressed in black as he had stormed out of the church. It had been her. She had been at his wedding and she had watched the whole disaster that had taken place. Then she had followed him from the church to Jake's where she had managed to slip something in his drink. Which put her back into the catergory of some sick obsessed stalker who had kidnapped him for her sexual pleasure. Still, that didn't fit, either. There was more going on here. He could feel it right down to his bones.

"What do you want from me?" He finally broke the silence, asking again for the truth. "And don't give me that cryptic answer that it's everything I have to give. I want the truth, this time. Just spit it out."

"You know what I want." He clenched his teeth when she addressed him in Spanish, again. "You gave it to me last night, and you'll give it to me again, tonight, when night comes again."

"Just how long do you intend to keep me in your bed naked?" He snarled. "For the rest of my life?"

"You must be feeling all sticky and dirty from all the exertion we experienced together, last night." She changed the subject. "No wonder you've awoken so grumpy. Why don't you take a shower and refresh yourself. You'll feel much better, afterwards. And while you're doing that, I'll change the sheets so they'll be fresh for us, tonight." She added. "Or if you'd prefer to stay in the bed, I could bathe you again, the way I did when you were passed out when you first arrived here."

"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" He snapped. "You love that you've got me trapped in your bed naked. Well, let me tell you something, sweetheart, there will be no repeat of last night, tonight. I don't know why I did it, but it isn't going to happen again."

"You told me you loved me last night when you were making love with me." She suddenly announced. "Did you mean it?"

"How the hell would I know?" He spat. "I don't even know who you are. Hell, I don't even know who I am at the moment. I don't do stuff like this. I don't make love with total strangers who drug me, kidnap me and steal all my clothes from me."

"Go take your shower." She ordered. "It'll make you feel much better." She added in a cajoling tone. "Since you obviously feel so strongly about what happened between us, last night, don't you want to wash it off you so you can forget it ever happened. Don't you want to wash my touch off you, the same way I washed the touch of all those other women you've been with before me, off you?"

That's exactly what he wanted to do, but he had no intention of getting out of bed so she could watch him walk to the bathroom naked. "Not until you leave."

"Don't be ridiculous." She retorted. "I've already seen everything you've got, so modesty is a little late don't you think."

"You've robbed me of everything else." He declared bitterly. "I won't allow you to rob me of my privacy, as well."

"As you wish." She stood up and walked out of the room, reluctantly.

Even though she had left the room, he wouldn't be surprised if she had a peephole somewhere where she could spy on him. So, he wrapped the bed sheet around himself as he climbed out of bed and stood up. He hadn't been on his feet since she'd drugged him, and he had to hang on to the night stand to steady his unsteady legs. As he made his way over to the bathroom, he couldn't help wondering why these things always seemed to happen to him. It was like he was a magnet for trouble.

He breathed a sigh of relief to see there was a lock on the bathroom door that he could lock, which he promptly did. Then he let the sheet drop from his body and went over to the bathroom mirror to look at himself in the mirror. He wasn't even sure he recognized the person who was looking back. He had done things since waking up in this place that he'd never thought he'd do, and he didn't understand it. What was happening to him. Was the drugs she had slipped in his drink responsible?

He knew he couldn't blame Carly's latest betrayal for what he had done with this mystery woman the night before. He'd been in the exact same situation when Angel Ellis had kidnapped him from the cemetery to save him and he hadn't behaved this way. He had played her and hadn't let her so much as kiss him, and that was with a stab wound, no less. So why had he behaved that way with this woman? Why had he wanted to tell her that it was true, when she asked him if he had meant it when he told her he loved her when they were making love?

He had to get control over himself and this situation he was in. He had to get away from her. He had to come up with a plan to escape from her and return to his normal life. His eyes fell on the bath towel hanging from the towel rack. Maybe it wasn't much, but it would cover him. If he had to escape this place with nothing but a towel covering him, he vowed he would. Whatever madness had overtaken him, it was going to end as of now.