Rise - Part Two (Rise #2)(20)

I glance at the card before I look at her again. "I'm so honored that you and Clive picked me. It means everything to me, Lilly."

"You are like a sister to me." Her voice wavers slightly. "I haven't had a friend like you before. You're my family, Tess."

"You're my family too," I say as I wrap my arms tightly around her. "I won't let you down, Lilly. I'll always be here for you and for Haven too."





Chapter 19


––––––––

"I'm going back to work tomorrow." He grazes his lush lips over my stomach. "Gabriel told me that you need to go back to L.A. in a couple of weeks. I'm going to pilot that plane."

"What you're actually trying to say Captain Beckett is that you're going to make love to me thirty thousand feet in the air."

His head falls back with a hearty laugh. "I just f*cked you and you're already looking forward to the next time?"

"Are you saying I have to wait weeks for it to happen again?" I drop my hand to my wetness. "I can take of myself in the meantime."

His hair tickles the flesh of my side as he looks down. "Don't touch yourself right now. I can't take that."

It's my turn to laugh. "You can take it. You're a machine."

His eyes dart up to mine. "Only with you, Tess Marlow. With anyone else I'm one and done."

I smile even though the words slice through me. I know he's slept with others. I doubt that our number of past lovers compare. He's nine years older than I am and he's traveled the world.

"No one else matters, Tess." He inches up my body. "I didn't mean it that way."

"I know," I say quietly as I curve my body into his. "You're not sleeping with anyone else right now."

"Our intimacy is different." He sighs as he rests his lips against my forehead. "It's so intense. I want you all the time. I just want to be around you."

I sigh at the admission. It's the same for me. Even though our relationship to this point has been far from normal, I've relished each moment that we've spent together. The drama surrounding his family has only created another level of trust between us that may not have been there for months otherwise. I can tell that he's as comfortable with me as I am with him.

"I love being around you too."

"My father's lawyer wants him to do an interview." His shoulders tense as he brushes his lips against my brow. "He wants the world to know what really pushed my father to fake his death."

It's the most he's shared with me since he told me that his brother and mother went with him to see his father in prison. I've held up my promise to not share any details any his father's reappearance in his life with anyone.

I know myself and even though I've remained patient to this point, that's been wearing thin. I'm no expert on the legalities of the situation. I don't know anything about statues of limitations but I do know that Frederick is paying for his crimes in every sense of the word.

Landon's voice has no inflection of compassion anymore when he talks about his father. If Dane is anything like his brother, he has little regard for the fate of his dad either. A man who was once respected and adored by his sons now sits in a prison cell waiting for his world to implode on him.

"What happens to you, Dane and your mom if your dad talks to the press?"

He lifts my hand to his lips. "We hold our heads up high. The father I had died in the water that day."

I nod faintly. I sense that any momentary thrill he may have felt when he first saw his father was instantly replaced with the desperate sadness of knowing that the man who had raised him, and taught him to ride a bike and fish had willingly caused him immeasurable emotion pain.

"He keeps telling us that he was protecting us." He chuckles softly. "He wants the three of us to believe that he pretended to drown that day to give us a better life."

"How was he protecting you?" I feel a sense of righteousness wash over me. "You could have died, Landon. What if you had drowned when that boat capsized?"

He pulls me tighter into his arms. "I was fine. I swallowed some water but other than that, I was fine. I think he trusted in my ability to swim."

I've watched Lilly cradle Haven in her arms and I've thought endlessly about what it would have been like if I'd carried my pregnancy to term. I can't say for certain if I would have been as caring a mother as Lilly or Ivy is, but I know, without any question, that I'd never throw my child into a situation in which they had to fend for their life.

"What he did was inexcusable." He looks up at me under heavy eyelids. "I'll never forgive him for what he did to my family."

I rest my head against his. "There are things that no one can forgive. Sometimes you just have to close off your heart."





Chapter 20


––––––––

"I know it's over, Tess." His voice is empty and shallow. "I'm not going to bother you again."

I stare at the top of my desk as I cling tightly to my phone. "It is over, Ansel. We can never go back to what we once had."