“Nothing besides three million dollars, you mean?”
His eyebrows pinched.
“You know it’ll take me a hundred years to pay off that debt, right?”
“I know.”
“You’re really going to waste your life married to someone you don’t even want to fuck?”
His eyebrows dipped low.
“Did you do this to punish my mother? Because she doesn’t care.”
“She cares.”
I snorted, peering out at the horizon and the wash of color splashed across the sky. Soon, it would be swallowed by night, but for a few minutes, it was the most beautiful thing in existence. With the exception of the man beside me.
We were both silent for a moment, staring out into the distance. I figured Rule was hoping I would drop the subject, and I was taking the time to gather my thoughts.
I sighed. “I didn’t ask you for details on my mother’s part in my kidnapping because I don’t want to know the truth. I know what she’s capable of. I can’t tell you how many times she’s used me to gain favor with the press. I’ve been used my entire life as a pawn for her image. She even used my father.”
“I thought she didn’t know who he was?”
“That’s what she said in an interview when she was pregnant with me. She garnered favor for being strong enough to venture into motherhood as a single, working woman. She latched onto that image, stood by it.” I sighed. “I think she knows who he is, but she likes how it makes her look to the media.” I glanced at him. “She plays the doting mother for the cameras. Behind the lens, she’s a selfish bitch. But I never thought she’d put me in harm’s way.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I do believe she did it. I believe she thought she had a valid reason and that it would all work out in the end.”
“It did.”
He was so wrong about that. “No. Not really.”
This time, he turned to face me, his dark eyes moving over my face.
“I have nightmares,” I admitted. “I wake up in a cold sweat more often than not. I never feel safe anymore. Maybe I never did, I don’t know.”
“Did he hurt you?”
He was referring to Diggy. I hated thinking about what happened, but I figured if anyone deserved an answer, it was the man who had saved me.
“No. But he threatened to, and I believed him. I pretended I didn’t. Pretended those bars were in place to keep him out, not me in. But I kept waiting for it. For the day he would make his way into the cage and do horrible, vicious things to me. The way he looked at me … watched me…” I shivered from the memory and from the cold penetrating my bones. “I think if the time had run out, he would’ve hurt me. He would’ve raped me because he’d built it into this big thing. He was convinced that was the way to knock me down a peg. He said that.”
His tone was cold and hard when he said, “I put a bullet between his eyes.”
“I know.” I met his stare. “I never thought of myself as a violent person, but I’m thankful for that. It’s the only reason I can sleep at all. But Diggy wasn’t in charge. He answered to someone. I always wondered who that was. The day you came, he thought you were Javier. What if Javier’s out there waiting for a chance to kidnap me for real? If my mother never paid the ransom, what’s to say he won’t get his money one way or another?”
They were all rhetorical questions, ones I’d asked myself a million times. I appreciated that Rule didn’t placate me with nonsense. He didn’t try to tell me the boogyman wasn’t real or that there wasn’t some slighted asshole hellbent on getting back at Monica Quinn for the money he was never paid. We both knew it would’ve been lies because, if I had to guess, Javier was out there. Whether he was looking to exact revenge on my mother was a question no one would have an answer to except for him.
“Are you cold?” Rule asked.
I realized I was shivering, but it was only partially from the cold. “Yes.”
Rule stepped forward, closing the gap between us. He pulled me against him as he took a deep breath. His big, callused hands moved over the bare skin on my arms, infusing warmth into my body. I rested my head on his shoulder and inhaled his musky scent. He smelled so good I did it again, pressing my nose to his neck. I didn’t think about what I was doing or the fact that I was technically making the move I’d been wanting to make. I wasn’t trying to seduce him, but Iwastrying to get closer.
“Laikyn.”
His breath was warm against my ear, his voice so low, I hardly heard it over the sound of the surf.
