I shifted my weight, but suddenly he was lifting me a foot off the ground, my legs kicking but just flailing around in the air. I was completely at his mercy.
“I’m going to ask you again, and you’re going to give me a real answer. What’s your name?”
“Naelle Montero,” I told him. “And you’re going to let me go.”
“Tell me, Naelle Montero,” he said, with a slight emphasis on my last name. “What are you doing in Ecuador?”
I gulped. “Running away.”
“From whom?”
“My ex-fiancé.”
“Hm. Tell me about him.” His tone made it seem like he doubted that I had an ex-fiancé at all.
“His name is Brayden Wilcox,” I said. “We just graduated from college, and we got engaged. But I found him in a closet with my best friend at our engagement party.”
“Nobody would be stupid enough to do that.” He snorted. “Not to a girl as beautiful as you are. Pull the other one…it has bells on.”
“I’m not joking,” I said, twisting a little. “That’s why I’m in Ecuador.”
“Well, Naelle Montero, why don’t we test that out?”
My eyes grew wide.
“What are you saying?”
“I can have some investigators look into it.”
“Okay…” I didn’t know what he was getting at.
“While you stay in the cabin with me.”
“What?” I gasped. “I want to go home.”
“Don’t worry. If you check out, you can go home. I’ll send my jet.”
“What are you talking about? How long is it going to take?”
“Just a few days.”
“Are you serious?” I struggled in earnest this time, trying to twist out of his grip.
“Or I can take you home right now.”
I stopped struggling. “You’d do that?”
“Why ask someone to do something that I could easily do myself?”
“So you’d let me pick up my stuff from the hostel and take me back to America…just like that?”
He shrugged and grinned at me.
“Let’s have an adventure.”
I had no clue what was going on, but if he was going to let me go back to the hostel, I’d have a chance to run.
“Okay,” I said.