Restrained Under His Duty (Dirty Little Secrets 3)

“Trust me.” A pause. Then, “What was the first thing you heard?”

He’s not going to let this go. And I’d rather do something else much more fun with the blindfold on, so I indulge him. I retreat to my mind, entering the dark room again. Mentally, I reopen my eyes, seeing the room as I saw it. “Water. I hear drips of water.”

“What do you smell?”

“Mold. It’s damp.”

“Is there anything else that you hear?”

“A voice…”

I feel myself slip deeper…and deeper into the memory as he asks, “What do you feel against your skin?”

“Burning on my wrists.” My voice blisters. “Cold.”

“Are you alone?”

“No.”

It’s like I’m there, right back there in that moment. That’s when the walls start closing in, slowly…until they’re moving faster and faster. “He’s here.” I gasp. “He’s got a gun.”

“You’re safe, Hadley.” Ryder’s smooth voice brings me back, reminding me I’m not there, I’m with him, as he adds, “Is he threatening you with the gun?”

My breath catches in my throat. “He has it to my head.”

Suddenly, the darkness is gone as the blindfold comes off. Once my eyes adjust, I’m no longer in that dark room, I’m staring at Ryder.

He cups my face, and as I lean into his touch, he asks again, “Tell me what you felt when you woke up finding yourself abducted.”

“I felt…” My throat squeezes tight and tears well in my eyes, until Ryder’s nothing more than a blur in front of me. There’s not a damn thing I can do to stop them. The floodgate is open, and they fall heavily. “Violated. Scared,” I cry. “I felt really, really scared.”

“Rightly so.” Then I’m in his strong arms, my face pressed against his chest.

Time becomes something I don’t care about, as I dump days’ worth, if not years’ worth, of heartbreak in the safety of his arms.

Only when my cries turn into whimpers does he lean away and hold my face in his hands again. “You can’t hide these feelings from me. It will destroy you, Hadley. I’ve seen PTSD destroy friends from the military. You need to talk about what you feel, and if we need to go back into your mind so you remember, then that’s what we’ll do, so you can begin to accept your feelings, not become numb to them.” I can’t even understand or process what he’s done for me now, as he brushes the tears off my face with his thumbs. “I can’t fix what you’ve been through. Not the accident. Not the abduction. Not the fact that a man put a gun to your head. But I can refuse to accept you shutting down. For this to work, for us to work, you need to be open to me and you need to see I won’t let you fall.”

I stare at him, laid bare to him. Somehow, this man did what years of therapy didn’t do in, what? A matter of minutes? “How did you do that?” I touch my tears, reeling in shock they’re there.

“Classic interrogation techniques,” he tells me gently, “and victim interviewing techniques.” He pauses. Then adds, “More important, I’m loving you right.”

I blink, not even sure what to say.

Good thing for me, he takes control of the conversation. “Do you remember that bold statement you said to me as a child at the dinner party the first night we met?” he asks.

I shake my head to clear the disbelief, accepting the warmth filling me now. That sensation that only comes when someone gets you. When someone cares enough about you to love you in the way you need to be loved.

He adds, “You told me that we would get married one day.”

The memory is a fresh one in my mind, and not one I ever need to be reminded of. I’ve thought of it often. Sure, I had been a child when I’d said it, but I remember thinking Ryder was Prince Charming. Then when he came back into our lives later on, I remember thinking he was mine.

“Well, Hadley, you were right all along.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a vintage princess-cut diamond ring. “This was my grandmother’s ring. I adored her. She adored me more. But I think she would have loved you most.”

I’m so speechless at the turn of events that I sit here and stare at the ring. Never before have I seen anything so perfectly beautiful. Back at the hospital, I thought Ryder walked away from me because he was torn about us being together. But it becomes clear to me now that he wasn’t torn about me, he was torn about his life and the fact that he couldn’t make me a permanent fixture in it.

“Hadley,” he says.

More tears fill my eyes as I throw my arms around him. “Yes, of course, yes. A hundred times yes, I’ll marry you.”