Falling For You (Love In All Seasons #2) - Frankie Love Page 0,48

family, speak with my lawyer. Don’t take me to your house. Take me to Anchorage.”

He cocks an eye at me, shaking his head ever so slightly.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“It won’t?” I ask, my voice cracking.

“Look at you, so scared.” He pats my knee again. “There’s no need to fret. Your family is at my estate, waiting for you. I promised them safe delivery. The police are on their way to arrest Ryder as we speak, and I arranged for your parents—who flew up last night—to be there when the plane lands.”

My shoulders fall, I exhale.

I read Luther all wrong. “I thought you were kidnapping me, trying to...”

Luther clucks his tongue. “That was Ryder getting in your head, making you doubt yourself. He probably told you all sorts of nasty lies about me. Truth is, he never liked me, even when his sweet mother was alive, always resented that I was a part of his family, didn’t want to share. So when the police found his abandoned truck last night, I put two and two together. Of course, he would want to sabotage this. To try to take you from me.”

“He knew you wanted to bid on me?”

“Of course.”

“But why didn’t he just bid himself.”

Luther squeezes my knee again. “Would have been the gentlemanly thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

I nod, my mouth going dry at his touch.

“My family is probably worried sick.”

“We all were, Justine. I just can’t believe Ryder would do something so cruel.”

Even now, with everything I know about Ryder, the word cruel is still hard to accept when describing him.

He may have kidnapped me, but then he held me in his arms, cradled me against his body and rocked slowly against me as I came undone, our bodies becoming one.

How he can be called cruel, a monster, a madman when last night he was also gentle and tender. They are too many conflicting adjectives to use on the same man.

I don’t speak, my head feels foggy. Just wanting to be hugged by someone familiar. My mother and father. Eileen. The people who have always supported and looked out for me.

But deep in my core, what I really want is for Ryder to wrap his strong arms around me, squeeze me tightly and swear he will never let me go.

I want the man who took me against my will and held me hostage. That confuses me, scares me. Makes me doubt everything I have ever believed about love and desire.

I can’t possibly want that—want him.

But I do. Oh, how I do.

I blink, looking out the window of the plane. The deep green forests as far and wide as the eye can see, and the vastness of this place soothes me, reminds me that my emotions have taken hold of me in ways that aren’t healthy.

I’ve never been a lovesick girl before. All wrapped up in a man and I don’t want to be that now.

The ice blue rapids in the river below the plane weave through the woods, and I know, just like the water moving toward the ocean, that I will wind up where I belong.

It just might not look the way I expected.

I gave my virginity to a man who now has a part of my heart, forever.

And I can’t take that back.

I don’t want to take it back.

I’ll get to Anchorage and make a statement of apology to the auction goers and to HAHA. The auction was a foolish idea, but falling for Ryder was not.

He was right earlier. I was scared of what falling so hard, so fast might mean.

But I don’t care about the risks anymore. It’s sure as hell a lot safer than riding in this plane with a man I am growing to realize is not who he seems.

Luther’s hand doesn’t leave my knee, though, and for the rest of the ride, he holds on. When he lands the plane on his private lake, I curtly thank him for calling my parents, for coming for me. I’m planning on running from him as fast as possible.

And calling Ryder as soon as I can.

To ask for another chance.

“Anything for you,” he says with sinister eyes.

He helps me from the plane by taking my hand a little too tightly, leading me from his massive dock toward the mansion up on the bank.

It’s an unreal piece of property, in different ways than Ryder’s is. Ryder’s was untamed, a wild forest and an untouched lake. This estate has a massive gate keeping out anyone who might