Claiming Genevieve

20. Genevieve

20

GENEVIEVE

T he morning of my doctor’s appointment to have my cast removed is the best day I can remember having in weeks. When I express that to Rowan over breakfast, he gives me a narrow look, a forkful of bacon halfway to his mouth.

“Better than our wedding day, lass?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m getting my cast taken off, not a ball and chain added, so yeah. I’d say so.”

Rowan presses a hand to his chest. “You wound me, taibhseach . Besides,” he adds, his eyes glinting with a mischievous light as he looks at me across the table, “if I wanted to chain you up…”

“Stop it.” I toss a napkin at him, and he catches it, his eyes still gleaming as his gaze holds mine. I can see the heat there clearly… and I can all but read every thought going through his head. Most of them, I think, do involve what he could do to me with chains… if I’d allow it.

The air thickens between us, and I swallow hard, dropping my gaze to the strawberry muffin in front of me that I’ve been picking apart. I can feel the tension snapping taut, like a thread close to breaking, and it’s only going to get worse. We have another week before it’s time to try again for a baby, and with every day that passes, I can feel Rowan’s awareness of just how long that is growing.

If I’m being honest with myself, I feel it, too. He tries to be gentlemanly, getting changed in the bathroom instead of in front of me, avoiding anything that might make it seem as if he’s trying to tempt me into breaking my rules. But living together makes it impossible for that heat not to build. Somehow, in setting rules about what we can and can’t do in the bedroom, I’ve made our relationship into something taboo. Something forbidden. And that only seems to have made things worse.

I crumble another bit of muffin between my fingertips, trying not to think about what I heard last night when I almost walked in on Rowan in the shower. I’d been preoccupied thinking about my appointment, ready for bed, trying to hobble in on my crutches. I hadn’t even registered the sound of the water until I’d opened the door and heard not only the shower, but the hard slap of flesh against flesh coming from the other side of the opaque glass door—and the sound of Rowan’s pleasured groan, ending on something that sounded very much like my name.

“Are you alright, lass?” There’s a hint of mischief in Rowan’s voice, and I don’t dare look up to meet his gaze. “You’re a bit pink.”

“It’s warm in here.” I stop shredding my muffin and look at the time. “I need to leave soon.”

“Aye.” He follows my gaze. “I’ll drive you. Unless you’re more comfortable with Rory’s driving, and then I’ll sit in the back?—”

“You don’t need to come with me.” I blurt it out, looking at him. “I’m fine. It’s just a doctor’s appointment.”

“I’m coming with you.” His tone brooks no argument. His gaze softens, and I feel something in my chest twist at what I see there—something very akin to regret. “I know you still think this is at least somewhat my fault, lass. I want to be there when you find out what comes after.”

I swallow hard. “I know what comes after. I start rehab for my ankle. And I either accept that I’ll only ever be a dancer in the company, or I find something else to do with my life.”

“Maybe—”

“No.” I cut him off, feeling a burn at the back of my eyelids. “No maybe . That’s what they’re going to tell me.”

I can’t let myself hope for anything else. To do that is like asking to feel the devastation and grief that I felt the night of the accident all over again—to relive it. There’s no point in hoping for something that I know can’t happen. Not when I haven’t yet come to terms with it completely the first time.

I push myself up from the table, reaching for my crutches, and Rowan follows me. I don’t look at him while he handles cleaning up from breakfast, instead choosing to stand at one of the windows, looking out over the city. I bite my lip, thinking of when I moved here to come to Juilliard—when the world felt so much more expansive, so capable of offering up all of my dreams. When everything felt so much more possible.

Now, I feel caged. Helpless. Caught in a web of mistakes that I didn’t even see I was making until it was too late.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I ignore it. It might be Dahlia or Evelyn, wishing me luck today. It might also be Chris, texting me again. Threatening me again. A reminder of one of those mistakes.

Rowan and I head down to the garage, where he leads me over to the Aston Martin, helping me in. “The valet is going to fuckin’ pass out when I hand them the keys to this,” he says with a grin, the car purring as he revs the engine.

“I’m amazed you’d let the valet touch it.”

“I like to live on the edge.” Rowan grins at me, hitting the gas and peeling out of the garage.

I gasp, grabbing onto the seat, and he chuckles. I roll my eyes at him. “Showoff.”

“Oh, if I were showing off, we’d be going much faster.” He looks over at me, weaving into traffic. “Maybe we’ll drive out into the country sometime, find an open road…”

“I’ll pass.” I shake my head. “I’ve already had a fractured ankle. I don’t need more injuries to add to the tally when you wrap this thing around a tree.”

Rowan presses his hand to his chest in a now-familiar gesture, and I look away, shaking my head. It itches at me that I know his gestures, like that one, now. It’s the kind of intimacy that comes with living together, with marriage. The kind of intimacy that goes hand in hand with a real relationship… not the kind we have.

I do my best to push the thought away. Rowan pulls up to the valet, handing the keys over to a guy who looks like he’s in his early twenties, and who stares at the Aston Martin like he’d park it for free. When Rowan comes around to open my door and helps me out of the car, his hand brushes against my lower back, and I feel a wave of heat wash through me.

The wait to be called back for my appointment feels endless. When the nurse finally pokes her head out and Rowan stands up with me to follow me back, I see her eyes go wide as she looks at him. Her gaze flicks to my hand, seeing the large emerald-cut ring there and the matching diamond band, and disappointment fills her expression. When Rowan asks me in a low tone if I’m alright, his Irish accent clear in his voice, her disappointment only seems to deepen.

And here I am, trying my best not to want him, I think wryly, as I head back to the exam room.

I try not to think about what the doctor is going to say as my cast is removed, listening as best as I can to the explanations of exercises for muscle atrophy and when and how often I’ll need to go to rehab to try to get the best outcome. When the doctor is finished explaining everything, he pauses and looks at me with that same sympathy that I remember from the doctor at the hospital.

“If you follow all the care instructions, do your exercises, and are careful with it for at least another two months, you could consider returning to dancing in a year.” The doctor pauses. “If you overwork the ankle, or if you put too much strain on it within the next six to twelve months, you might not be able to dance again.”

His tone is gentle as he says it, but firm. Nothing he’s saying is anything I didn’t already expect, but I feel my throat tighten anyway, tears burning at the back of my eyes. A year . By then, I’ll be starting back from the bottom of the company. I don’t doubt that Vincent would find a place for me, but it won’t be anywhere near the position of prima . And I’ll never lead the company again.

I bite my lip. “Thank you,” I manage finally. “I’ll make that appointment with rehab as soon as I get home.”

The doctor hands over all the paperwork, gives me some final guidance, and then—for the first time in weeks—I walk out of the exam room without crutches. Rowan hovers near me, clearly ready to catch or assist me if I need it, but I make it all the way out and down to the waiting car on my own. He opens the door for me, and I just manage to slip inside before the tears start to spill down my cheeks.

“Lass.” Rowan’s voice is full of sympathy as he slides in next to me, and somehow that only makes me cry harder. “Genevieve. Come on, let’s get you home?—”

He’s interrupted by a car behind us honking loudly. He twists half his body out of the window, shouting back at the driver: “Téigh trasna ort féin! Go fuck yourself!”

“Rowan!” I press my hand to my mouth, a burst of giggles coming out through my tears. “Let’s just go.”

He settles back into the driver’s seat, looking over at me with concern. “We can sit here as long as you need to, milseán . Anyone else can wait.”

I swallow hard, trying to fight back the tears as I meet his gaze. “I feel like—” I bite my lip, wondering if I should say what I’m thinking. If I should be so vulnerable with him. Shouldn’t I be closing myself off from him, now more than ever?

But he just looks at me, patient and waiting for me to finish what I was going to say, and I let out a slow, shaky breath. “I feel like I’m supposed to just be happy that I might be able to dance again. Like if I really love it, I’ll be happy whether I’m the prima or not, so long as I’m dancing. But all I can think is that it’s going to be miserable, seeing someone else achieving what I had, and always feeling— knowing —that I’m never going to be that good again.”

“That’s bullshit,” Rowan says, and I look up, startled to see a burning intensity in his green eyes as he looks at me. “You worked hard your whole life to be the best, Genevieve. There’s nothing wrong with mourning that. You’re not less of a dancer, less of an artist, because you’d be unhappy not being able to be what you once were.”

I bite my lip. “You really think that?”

He nods. “Once you’ve had the best of something—it’s impossible to go back to a lesser version of it and be satisfied.”

His gaze holds mine, and a shiver runs down my spine. I don’t think he’s talking about ballet any longer. I swallow hard, looking away, and the car behind us honks again. Rowan starts to turn and shout at the driver, but I reach out, touching his leg. I feel him freeze, feel the muscle under my hand tense and go hard, and Rowan drops back into the seat, looking at me.

“Let’s just go,” I say softly, and he nods.

I finally pull out my phone when we get back to the penthouse, ignoring the texts from Chris. I refuse to read them at all. Instead, I check my texts from Dahlia and Evelyn, reassuring them that I’m alright. They both text back nearly immediately, asking if I want to go out and celebrate getting my cast off, and I hesitate for just a minute before I agree. It’ll be good for me, I think. And I don’t know if I can handle another evening of just sitting in the penthouse with Rowan, feeling the tension build between us. He’s been too exhausted from long days of meetings with his father to want to go out and do much, and I’ve found the lack of mobility that I had before frustrating. But now the cast is off, and I have to admit it sounds nice to go out and have drinks with my friends.

“I’m going to go out with Dahlia and Evelyn,” I tell Rowan, and he glances at me, raising an eyebrow.

“Right now?”

“No, tonight. I’ll probably meet them at like… seven? Eight?”

“I’ll send Rory with you,” he says immediately. “I need to talk to my father about a dedicated bodyguard for you, now that you’ll be up and about more, but?—”

I blink at him. “I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Yes, you do,” he fires back. “Especially on account of that arse of an ex-boyfriend you have. But for more reasons than just that. You’re the wife of the heir to the Irish mafia, taibhseach . You can’t just go around without protection.”

I let out a slow breath, but I can already feel my will to argue fading. If Evelyn and Dahlia’s experiences are anything to go on, Rowan isn’t going to be dissuaded in this. It’ll just be an argument I’ll eventually lose, and I don’t see the point in that. And, if I’m being honest with myself, he’s not entirely wrong that it might be good to have some protection in case Chris decides to bother me. I don’t think he’ll really go as far as harming me again, but a bodyguard would keep him from even speaking to me at all.

“Okay,” I relent, and I see a flicker of surprise in Rowan’s eyes.

For all that I’m still coming to terms with the reality of my injury, and the fact that I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life now, I feel a small burst of excitement when I go to get ready for the evening. It’s been a while since I’ve been out with my friends, and it’ll be a good distraction.

I opt for flat shoes, so I don’t put any undue stress on my still-healing ankle, and pick out a wide-legged black floral silk jumpsuit. I leave my hair down, doing just a bit of light makeup and adding simple gold jewelry, and give myself one glance in the mirror before heading down. I look as if I’ve gained a bit of weight, without the endless rehearsals and strict diet, but I think it suits me. I don’t look as frail as I did before.

Rowan is downstairs in the kitchen when I come down. His gaze drifts over me, taking me in, and I see that familiar glint of desire in his eyes. “Have fun,” is all he says, his voice carefully neutral, but I can feel his eyes on me all the way to the door. Rory knocks and steps in as I’m getting my keys, and Rowan clears his throat.

“Keep an eye on her,” he says firmly. “Make sure no one bothers her.”

“You got it, boss.” Rory throws him a two-fingered salute and follows me out as I leave the penthouse.

Dahlia and Evelyn are already waiting for me at the tapas dessert bar where they wanted to meet, a bright pastel confectionery that is a good substitute for an actual bar, since neither of them can drink right now. I , on the other hand, still can, and I waste no time ordering a white Russian when we sit down at the pink-and-yellow velvet booth near a window that the hostess leads us over to. Rory finds a seat on the opposite side, choosing to sit with the two bodyguards who came along with Dahlia and Evelyn.

“Don’t you get tired of it?” I ask as we look over the flowery printed menus that the hostess left us with. “Having people watching you all of the time?”

Evelyn laughs softly as Dahlia shrugs. “I hated it at first,” she admits. “But I got used to it. I do feel safer, now. Especially since I know the kind of danger that can come along with Dimitri’s position.”

“It’s just one of the downsides,” Dahlia says. “But they’re good at staying out of the way. Sometimes I forget there’s always someone watching me.”

“How are you feeling?” Evelyn asks, changing the subject. “You said the appointment went okay?”

I nod. “It was fine. I’m fine, so long as I follow all the instructions they gave me. I just…” I reach for my drink, taking a sip of it. “I’m still wrapping my head around what this means. What I’m going to do with my life now.”

“You have time to decide,” Dahlia reassures me. “You don’t have to figure it out right now.”

“I know.” I manage a smile. “What have the two of you been up to while I’ve been adjusting to married life?”

The two of them fill me in on their lives—on Evelyn’s shop and Dahlia’s newest exhibit that she’s overseeing at the museum, and how they’re preparing for the babies, everything that they’re excited for. We talk and laugh and eat our way through an astonishing variety of tiny desserts, until Dahlia finally glances at the time.

“We should probably head out,” she says regretfully. “I have an appointment in the morning.”

We pay the check and get up, saying our goodbyes and making plans as Rory and the other two bodyguards head over to join us. And then, just as we step outside into the warm summer night, I hear a sudden, high-pitched sound whiz past my ear, and the brick of the wall just behind me explodes into a handful of shards that sting against the back of my neck.

“Get down!” Rory’s voice is suddenly right there, loud in my ear, and I feel his hand on my back, pushing me down into a bent-over position as he pulls me closer to him and starts to run with me toward where the car is parked. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dahlia and Evelyn’s bodyguards doing the same, and I start to turn to call out to them.

Just as I do, I hear another thunk as something hits the wall behind me again. Rory curses aloud in Gaelic, half-dragging me down the sidewalk as we run toward the car. My ankle aches, the pressure and speed more taxing than anything it’s been asked to support in weeks, but I don’t stop. I don’t know what’s happening, but something is wrong, and I feel like I can hardly breathe. My heart is hammering against my ribs.

Rory yanks the passenger door open, shoving me in unceremoniously as he runs to the other side. Something strikes the windshield, cracks spidering out, and he swears again, yanking the steering wheel to one side as he hits the gas and lurches out into the road.

“Dahlia—Evelyn—” I push myself up, grabbing for my seatbelt as I try to see where they’ve gone. “Rory!”

“They’ll be fine,” he says through gritted teeth, flooring the gas. “Their guys will take care of them. I’ve got to get you back to Rowan in one piece, or he’ll have my fuckin’ head.”

There’s real worry in his voice, and I swallow hard, twisting back to see if we’re being pursued. I don’t see anyone. “What’s happening?” I ask in a small voice, and Rory shakes his head.

“I don’t know. Someone with a vendetta against one of you, or someone who wanted to strike at Rowan or the Yashkov boys.” He shrugs, his gaze fixed on the road. “You bet your ass Rowan will find out, though.”

A vendetta against one of you. “It can’t be Chris,” I whisper to myself, too low for Rory to hear. But a nagging worry sticks in the back of my head, and it doesn’t leave.

The moment Rory and I burst into the penthouse, Rowan is on his feet. He looks at me—sees my pale face and messed-up hair, the scratches on my neck from the brick shards—and his own face drains of blood.

“What the fuck happened?” His voice is deadly as he looks at Rory, who also looks a little green around the edges.

“Gunshots,” Rory says simply. “Someone took aim at her, boss. Couldn’t see where they were. A sniper in the building across from us, I think.”

“I thought—” My voice trembles. “I thought you said it could have been any of us?—”

“I said that to keep you from panicking.” Rory looks back at Rowan. “It was aimed at her. Then at our car. Someone pissed about you coming back and taking up the mantle, boss?”

Rowan presses his lips together. “Maybe,” he says slowly. “There is someone in my father’s will who inherits if I back out, or if—” He stops before saying if Genevieve doesn’t get pregnant, which I appreciate. It’s not really something I want Rory thinking about. “Maybe them? But I doubt it. My father wouldn’t choose someone who was likely to betray him in that way. And he’d likely not even let them know they were in the will, to avoid exactly this. They wouldn’t know they were going to inherit until the conditions for it had already been met.”

Rory rubs the back of his neck. “Then who?—”

I swallow hard. Guilt crawls through me, and I dig my phone out of my pocket, holding it out toward Rowan. “You should probably see these.” I open it to the text message thread from Chris and let Rowan see the phone.

His face darkens as he reads. “ Fuck , Genevieve—” He shakes his head, his jaw tightening. “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?”

I press my lips together, feeling my face heat. “I didn’t—” I take a slow breath. “I didn’t think it was that bad. I thought he was just being an asshole. Just trying to scare me. I didn’t think he’d actually do anything, much less?—”

“Still, why didn’t you say something?” Rowan stares at me, handing back the phone. “Help me understand, lass.”

I bite my lip. “I figured you or Dimitri or Alek would go after him if I did. Hurt him or…kill him. I didn’t think he deserved that, just for being an ass?—”

“Clearly we differ on that,” Rowan bites out. “But now he’s bloody earned it.”

“What do you mean?” I swallow hard. “Rowan?—”

“I think he put out a hit on you, lass.” Rowan’s gaze meets mine, and I can see the fear in it, plain as day. Fear for me . “He mentioned connections. Money. I think that’s what’s happening here. A sniper? Sounds like a hit to me.”

“Agreed,” Rory says. “What do you want me to do, boss?”

“Get some extra security over here.” Rowan runs a hand through his hair. “I’m going to call my father.”

He pulls out his phone, walking to the other side of the room. I stand there, numb, unsure of what to say or do. Everything feels as if it’s spiraled out of control so quickly, and I don’t know how it got this far. I never thought it would.

From across the room, Rowan murmurs something I can’t quite make out, nodding, and then nodding again. After a few minutes, he hangs up, walking back toward me. His face is set, his eyes narrowed, and I swallow hard as I look at him.

“What’s going on?” I ask softly, and he lets out a long breath.

“Pack some things, lass,” he says flatly. “We’re going to Ireland.”