Page 33 of Unbreak Me
“What’s wrong?” I look up and see Ryder standing there. Ryland has a yellow hooded towel on, and her wet curls are down around her face. I give her a small smile before looking back down at my phone. He sets Ryland down and gets her dressed quickly, giving her the basket with her toys in it so we can talk. Walking over to me, his eyes search mine. “I can tell you’re upset. What is it?”
“Agent Davis just texted me,” I sigh. “They are pushing for the maximum sentence of thirty years in prison. I guess the evidence I gave them is rock-solid and ties him to some very powerful people they’ve been looking for.”
His jaw is set, and his eyes go hard. “Good,” he says through clenched teeth. He looks at Ryland before he looks back at me. “I hope he rots in there. It sucks to have everything you love ripped from you, and he’s got thirty years to get a taste of what I felt for the past three.”
I look down at my hands and wring them together. I know I shouldn’t feel guilty, but I do. I put my own father away. Who does that?
“Don’t.” He steps closer to me, invading my space. “Don’t you dare feel fucking guilty,” he says in a low voice, knowing exactly what I’m feeling. “He did this to himself. It was his choices that put him in a jail cell for the rest of his life, not yours.”
“He’s still my father, Ryder. I’m the reason the punishment is so harsh. Without my evidence, it would have been a lot less. Thirty years is a long time. He will probably die in there,” I whisper.”
“Just because he fucked your mother and accidentally got her pregnant does not make him a father. Neither one of them has ever loved you like you deserved. They both got off on controlling you like you were just another object they owned.”
I know what he’s saying is true, but hearing it aloud cuts me deeply to the core. Never feeling love from your own parents is something I wouldn’t wish on anybody. I tried so hard to be the perfect daughter, always doing what I was told and getting good grades, thinking I could earn their love. It wasn’t until I met Ryder that I realized that’s not how love works. He loved me unconditionally and made sure I felt it every single day we were together, just like I have loved Ryland from the moment I found out I was pregnant.
“You’re right,” I say quietly. “You’ve been more of a dad to Ryland these past three days and have shown her more love than my father has my entire life. I won’t let him make me feel guilty for wanting to get back to you.”
I see the war raging in his eyes as anger from my dad resurfaces. In the beginning, Ryder tried to win over my father, wanting his approval, but he quickly learned it was no use. All my father loved was power and money, and if you didn’t fit into those two categories, you weren’t worth his time. I don’t eventhink he loved my mother, but she came from wealth, and their families benefited when they got married. They both got what they wanted until I accidentally came along and put a snag in their plans.
“I don’t want you to ever give him any more power.” He backs me up until I hit the counter. “He couldn’t see that you were his most valuable treasure. He should have done everything in his power to protect and love you from the moment you were born. He doesn’t deserve your guilt, and he damn sure doesn’t deserve your love anymore. His existence in our lives ends now. He won’t ever get the chance to hurt us or my family again. He made his bed, and now he can rot in it.” His chest heaves against mine as his greys blaze.
I nod my head, and he grips the counter tightly, caging me in.
“Say it,” he demands.
I hold his gaze and find my strength through Ryder. He’s always been my safe place and now isn’t any different. He wants me to own my worth.
“I’m done with him. He never deserved my love,” I say, blinking back the tears. “I won’t let him hurt me or my family anymore.” I feel the tears fall down my cheeks, but not from guilt or sadness that I lost a father. It’s because of the love I see right now staring back at me. He’s letting me see it fully for the first time since I came back. “I…I won’t ever let him come between us again. He won’t ever take what’s mine away from me again.”
I see his nostrils flare at the wordmine,and his gaze turns heated.He loves it when I call him mine just as much as I love being called his. We don’t exist without each other, and the last three years proved that even more.
“I would like to see him try to take what’s mine again.” His voice is low and full of threat. My hand comes up, and I rest it on his heart. I feel it beating rapidly under my palm.
I look up at him again, and he glances down at my lips briefly before sliding back up to my eyes. I want so badly to be his again, but until he puts his walls down, I’m stuck on the other side, just waiting for a way to get in.
“We should start on dinner so we can get Ryland to sleep,” he says roughly, backing up and avoiding my gaze. “We still have to talk to my parents and Savi later.” He walks over to the cabinet and starts pulling out ingredients. He stopped by the store earlier so we could have dinner here tonight with just the three of us. I know he’s trying to spend as much alone time with Ryland as he can right now.
I sigh, knowing I’m not going to get anything more out of him. I wipe the remaining tears away and get started on dinner with him. I open the bottle of red he got for us and pour us each a glass. I have a feeling with this phone call, we are going to need it.
“Ryder, it’s too much,”I say on the other end of the phone as I stare at the SUV that was just delivered. I had to sign for it because my name was on the title next to his.
“You need a vehicle, and we can’t put Ryland in the Porsche I have, so I got one.” He says it like it’s no big deal that he just bought a brand-new car.
“I can’t afford the payments on something like this. I was thinking more like a used Toyota or minivan.”
“First, you don’t have to worry about the payments. It’s already taken care of. Second, I’m not driving a damn minivan around. You might as well put me in cargo shorts to my knees and a tucked-in shirt with a belt, white socks, and tennis shoes.”
I giggle at the dad image he just painted that’s so not Ryder.
“And third, I don’t trust used vehicles unless I’m the one who put it together. I want to know you both are safe when you aredriving, and I know Porsches like the back of my hand, so if anything goes wrong, I can fix it. I even got it in black so we can match.”
Sliding into the vehicle, I inhale the new scent of leather and admire its beauty. I reach up and push the button on the sunroof, and most of the roof disappears. The Florida sun shines down, warming my skin.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she.” I can hear his satisfied grin on the other end of the phone when he realizes I’m checking it out. “Admit it, she’s turning you on a bit. She’s not as sexy as mine, but you’re going to love driving her.”
“Are you talking car porn to me right now?” I run my hand over the stitching on the tan leather seats, remembering the thrill whenever I would get in one of Ryder’s cars. He loves to push the limits with speed, but I always felt safe with him. I trust him with my life. It’s also sexy as hell watching him shift those gears.
“Is it working?” His voice goes lower, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am. We could never get enough of each other whenever we took one of Jimmy’s cars for a spin. It would turn us both on so much that we would tear each other’s clothes off the minute we got back home, the adrenaline running high in our bodies.
