7. Robin #2
“I need to shower before I see them,” I say, surprised by how steady my voice sounds. Maybe I cried out all my weakness. Or maybe being in Eva’s arms again gave me strength. “I have to look decent. I can’t let them see me like this.”
They’re just kids. I won’t traumatize them by showing up looking like I’ve been through hell.
Eva nods immediately, understanding what I mean. “Of course. Whatever you need.”
Something in her instant agreement catches my attention despite how shitty and awful I feel.
The Eva who bought me at auction would not have sounded like that. She might have said the same words, but with a very different tone. With a bored or impatient vibe instead of warmth and support.
This Eva—this Eva is different.
She has changed, just like I have. Because after the last day—two days?—I’ll never be the same again. “How long was I…” I trail off.
“Thirty-two hours,” she murmurs back, her forehead pressing against mine as we rock gently in time with the vehicle’s motion.
I reach up to touch her cheek, startled to find it wet.
“I thought I’d lost you.” Her amber eyes are raw, vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen. “When Leon told me you’d been taken?—”
She doesn’t finish, but she doesn’t need to. I can see the truth written across her face.
She was terrified.
The vehicle pulls up to a casino-hotel’s private entrance and Eva pulls away just slightly to wipe her eyes and compose herself, but her arm stays around me.
Leon’s already opening the doors, checking sightlines, nodding as he lets us climb out.
Scarlett gives me a gentle smile before melting away with Caitlin and Juno.
Just inside the staff entrance, a platinum blonde who looks stunning even though she was probably up all night. She hands Eva a keycard without ceremony.
“Private suite,” she says, voice clipped. “Sweep’s clean. Your people are posted at the doors.”
Eva accepts the card, and then hesitates. “How is Nik?”
“She’ll live.” The blonde turns to me and her green eyes soften slightly. “I’m Brie Colombo. And you must be the woman who made Eva Novak’s heart grow a few sizes.”
I give a tremulous smile. “I’m sorry about...everything.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” Brie tells me, and her smile now is genuine. “No trouble at all. And your suite is right next door to your family’s, when you’re ready.” She looks back to Eva. “We need to talk. Later. Once everything has…calmed down.”
Eva nods. “Of course.”
In the elevator, silence stretches between us, although Eva is still holding my hand.
I study her reflection in the polished steel doors—her face is still and unreadable as usual, but there’s something fragile in the set of her shoulders.
Like she’s holding herself together through sheer force of will.
The suite is gorgeous, of course, with incredible views, but all I can focus on is the bathroom doorway, promising hot water and clean clothes.
“I’ll let you rest,” Eva says, already stepping back toward the door. “When you’re ready, I’ll take you next door to your family.”
“No.” The word comes out sharper than I intended. I catch her wrist, feel her pulse racing beneath my fingers. “Stay with me. Please.”
Something flickers across her face—surprise, relief, need. “If you’re sure.”
I nod, though I’m not sure of anything except that I can’t bear to be alone right now. Can’t stand the thought of Eva walking away when I just got her back.
In the bathroom, I sit and wait on a velvet-covered vanity stool while Eva starts the shower, adjusting the temperature. When she turns to me, a nervous question in her eyes, I stand again. “Can you help me?” I ask.
As she undresses me, her hands shake slightly, and she pauses when she comes to the bandages.
“What did Scarlett say?” she asks.
“To make sure they were dry before putting the bandages back on. But it’s fine to get the wounds wet.”
She kneels down to peel away the soft bandages like she’s handling precious artifacts, each coming undone from my ankles with reverent care. But when she sees the marks beneath, her jaw clenches as she looks up at me with hard eyes.
“I should have killed them more slowly,” she says.
“Eva.” I catch her hands, pull her up to stand again. “Don’t. They’re gone. I’m here.”
Steam billows from the shower, turning the air soft and warm. Eva undresses as well and then helps me step under the spray, and I nearly collapse from sheer pleasure as hot water hits my battered body.
Eva reaches for the shampoo, working it through my hair with gentle fingers. The simple intimacy of it was impossible a week ago. Now it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
“I’m sorry,” she says after she rinses the suds away. “This is all my fault.”
I turn in her arms, water streaming between us. “No. It’s mine. I sold myself at that auction. I set all of this in motion.”
“You did what you had to do.”
“So did you.” I smooth wet hair back from her forehead, marveling at how young she looks without her armor of cold perfection. “And I’m grateful. For all of it. Even for them taking me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true.” I press my forehead to hers. “I see you now. All of you. I wouldn’t have known if they hadn’t taken me. If you hadn’t come to take me back.”
Her hands cup my face. “I made a terrible mistake, letting you go. I thought distance would protect you, but I see now—you’re no safer away from me than you are with me.”
The water pounds down around us as Eva’s carefully constructed walls begin to crumble. “I want us to be together, Robin. But I’ll respect whatever you choose.”
The Eva who owned me would never have given me a choice. Would have taken what she wanted and damn the consequences. But this woman—this woman is offering me a partnership.
I frame her face with my hands and kiss her, tasting salt and steam and the promise of something real. When we break apart, she’s trembling.
“I want you, too,” I whisper. “I need you to know that. But I need some time to think. About my family. About what it would mean for us to…”
“Of course.” Her voice is steady, but I can see the fear in her eyes. “Whatever you decide.”
The na?ve girl who fell in love with a fantasy would have said yes without hesitation. But that girl died in the moment she woke up zip-tied to a chair. Died and was reborn.
And the woman she is now understands that love alone isn’t enough to protect the people she cares about from the consequences of Eva’s world.
So I need to be sure. Absolutely sure.
I step out of the shower, Eva wrapping me in a towel that’s softer than silk.
In the mirror, I barely recognize myself—hair dark with water, eyes huge in my pale face, skin marked with evidence of violence.
Eva helps me dress in brand new sweats, comfortable and cleverly chosen with slim cuffs at the ankle and wrist that will keep the bandages covered up from the frightened eyes of my family.
“I want to see them now,” I say at last.
I smooth down my borrowed clothes and check my reflection one last time. I don’t want my siblings to see the hell I’ve been through. I don’t want it haunting them.
“They’re ready,” Eva says, and when I don’t turn away from the mirror, she adds softly, “Are you?”
I nod, though I’m anything but ready. Ready to see my family, yes. But ready to make an impossible choice between love and safety?
Ready to face whatever comes next in Eva Novak’s ruthless world?
I’m not sure.