If there was a moment for her to escape, now would be the time. My mind flashed back to the moment I saw her go over the top of the balcony on our first night. She could do it now and there’d be no way for me to reach her in time.
There were plenty of other boats nearby that she could easily be picked up before I or my men could get to her.
Of course, I wouldn’t let her go so easily. I’d board any boat that picked her up to demand her return.
Nonetheless, I made no move to join her. She needed to trust me, and the only way she was going to do so was for me to back the fuck off. I wanted to show her that I could let her taste freedom. That she’d be given the choice to leave and she would choose to stay.
Could I be what she needed? Hell, no. I was a bastard with more secrets than she could possibly drum up. But I would still be a bastard who gave her a choice.
When Leda turned, I waited with bated breath to see what she was going to do. Whatever she decided, I could handle. I wouldhaveto handle it. If she left, I wouldn’t blame her. After all, she was in this shit because of me.
So when she started to walk toward me, a knot in my chest loosened.
She was coming to me.
“What’s that look for, Lucas?” Leda asked as she reached my side, her long hair blowing in the wind.
“I thought you would jump,” I said.
“Jump?” she looked back at the railing. “Into the Hudson?”
I shrugged, carefully schooling my emotions so that I wouldn’t let her see how much she affected me. “The easiest way out.”
Leda opened her mouth and then promptly shut it. “Lucas,” she said after a few moments. “I didn’t want to jump.”
Her words destroyed me. She didn’t want to jump. She didn’t want to leave me even though I had bought her like an object.
The man who stole everything from her: from her freedom to her innocence.
And yet… she chose me.
Chapter 39
Leda
The wild panic in Lucas’s eyes faded with my words and left me breathless at the same time. He thought I was going to jump, to swim away from him and toward my freedom.
The truth was, I could have. Any sane person would have taken that opportunity to escape, even if it meant jumping into the Hudson. He was being far too nice to me, a completely different person at every turn. He was confusing the hell out of me today. But I never forgot the reality of what we were:
I was still his prisoner, and this could be just another test.
I hadn’t chosen him. He took me, ripped me from my future without my consent, took my virginity, and used me in almost every way that a man could use a woman.
Yet here I was, staring at him and wondering why he looked at me like I was some lifeline for him.
“Why?” he rasped. “Why didn’t you jump?”
I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my face in his shirt. As much as I hated admitting it, I loved the way he smelled. Something dark and spicy that was equal parts off-limits and equal parts utterly intoxicating.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I really don’t.”
Lucas let out a shuddering breath and his arms came around me, locking me against his chest. “The sun is setting.”
“Oh?” I asked, turning around so I could watch it on the horizon.
The gorgeous sunset streaked the sky with perfect mixtures of gold, orange, and blue. In any other scenario, it would have been a perfect sunset, the sort that Edmond Dantes sailed off into at the end ofThe Count of Monte Cristo.
“You can see the best sunset from my brother’s penthouse,” I said. “Mine has an obstructed view, but Nico’s was perfect.”