26. Anastasia
The apartment is searched by Rix and the other man before they leave us. The moment Rhett and I are alone, I don’t know what to do. How to feel.
I drop the keys onto the kitchen island and watch Rhett float around the place. There wasn’t a day I didn’t imagine him here, and it’s hard to believe he isn’t just in my imagination right now.
I’ve pictured the day we would be reunited a hundred times, yet nothing comes close to the reality. I expected the heaviness, but it doesn’t make facing it any easier.
“We can change anything,” I whisper, because I worry he’s going to shut me out any second.
How will I tell him I’ve been with Alistair all this time? That it’s how I know how to use a gun. Will he forgive me for taking the hand of his evil uncle, colluding with Jacob Forthson, and trying to gain the help of Silas Balenheizer? Everyone Rhett despises.
Rhett runs a hand along the couch as his blue eyes shift to me. “You said you got this place for us,” he says, equally as quiet. “Yet you saw the car wreck. He said you believed I was dead.”
“I couldn’t,” I say, taking tentative steps toward him. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me, and I believed you. I couldn’t accept you were gone, and I-I did things. Some terrible things, because I had to try to find you. I don’t know what it makes me now, if you’ll even still see me the same or what ...” I trail off. My throat becomes too tight.
“Ana—”
I shake my head. “You don’t have to say anything. Not until you hear all I’ve done—” My words are cut off by the whimper that escapes me when Rhett takes my face in his hands.
“I know,” he says, searching me with those blue eyes I’ve missed so painfully. “He made me watch you often. I know you were with him, and I think I know why. But when you’re ready, I’ll hear it all from you.”
I’m slammed by shock.
He was watching me all this time? I don’t know how to feel about it. Relief that he knows. Anger at Alistair, as I’m sure it was some twisted tactic to torment Rhett. Sadness. Such terrible sadness, because I know it would have worked, and once again I was a weapon used against him.
“I’m so sorry,” I choke out.
“You said that before, and I don’t want to hear it again. Please. I can’t bear it.”
“I just wanted to be strong enough. Brave enough. I wanted to find you,yet somehow you still found me first.”
His thumb sweeps the tear falling down my face. “No. You found me, little bird. Only, I’m still reeling at how, because out of everything I think I’m pretty damn good at figuring out, I can’t for the life of me work out how the fuck you managed to ally with Silas Balenheizer.”
My next breath shudders in disbelief. “He got you out?”
He only nods. “You are everything, Ana. You’re the most strong, brave, and brilliant person I’ve ever known. And I fucking missed you every second of every damn day.”
His lips angle to meet mine, and waves of longing and relief crash into me in a sob that escapes between our desperate kiss. We have so much to talk about. It’s a long road to healing and mending and finishing what we started. We’re inside the wicked now, and the only way to kill the kings of the underworld is together.
I lift myself up into Rhett’s arms, and he sets me on the kitchen island.
“This place is perfect,” he says, trailing his lips down my neck. “But it’s not safe for us to stay here.”
“Where will we go?”
“The safest place for you would be to stay with your parents for a while.”
My hand tightens in his hair, forcing him to look up at me. I can hardly stand the bruises and cuts over his perfect face. My fingers lightly reach for a scab on his temple.
“Don’t say that.” I’m angry, riddled with anxiety, because I feared he’d push me away.
“It’s true.”
“But not what you want.”
“No.” He squeezes my thighs. With a palm flattened on my lower back, he presses me tighter to him. “I don’t ever want you out of my sight again.”
My eyes flutter with the relief. “Good.” I kiss him, only once, as a promise. “I’m not going anywhere you’re not going.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that, but more so, it’s selfish of me to be damn relieved to hear it.”
My legs tighten, and it’s as if we can never be close enough. I don’t want any fraction of distance from him.
“Where’s the bathroom?” he asks, lifting me off the counter.
I direct him into the en suite, and he lets me turn on the large walk-in shower.
Rhett looks me over, pain slicing his eyes once again. I must look an absolute sorry state. Smudged makeup, tangled hair, ripped clothing. Bloodstained. I can’t bear to look in the mirror when I fear I’ll picture Micah.
Neither of us move for a painstaking minute.
I take in his appearance too. His clothing is new. His hands are bandaged. I wonder how long he was out of his hell before he managed to find me in mine.
Rhett steps closer, and I let him unzip the jacket, peeling it from my shoulders. His fingers reach for the button of my shorts, but I panic. My breathing spikes as I lay my hands over his to stop him.
It’s Rhett.
I want to let him undress me, but it feels like a pretense with what’s torturing me inside.
He lets go without a word, and I can’t look up. The pain in his eyes would only break my spirit more. Instead Rhett takes off his black T-shirt, and I find distraction in the new marks all over him. My chest aches at every fresh bruise and new scar. I reach up, hesitating in case he doesn’t want me to touch him. When he doesn’t move, I melt at the feeling of his skin under my palms. There are so many new marks I don’t know where to begin.
“What did he do to you?” I whisper.
“I don’t care about any of the physical,” he says, detached from emotion.
It cleaves me when, with that, I realize there’s something he cares about. Something that isn’t physical to him, which Alistair tortured him with.
I look up as if I’ll find the answer floating to the surface of the ocean in his eyes, but he’s guarding that part. I lean forward and press my lips to his chest. I can wait as long as it takes for him to open up to me.
“I’m right here. You can tell me anything, and I’ll always be right here,” I say.
“Let’s start with a shower,” he says, tipping my chin. He tries a smile, but it’s anchored by a burden.
I want to wash more than anything. To scrub and scrub and hope to be rid of the impression of Micah’s vile hands on me. But I don’t want Rhett to see it. I fiddle with the hem of my untucked blouse, trying to quell the shame in me while I pace the same two steps.
It was not my fault.
It was not my fault.
If I hadn’t broken the camera, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to attempt the assault.
It was not my fault.
I take off my ruined top. In my hands I stare at it, wondering how I can’t remember the moment he tore it. I toss it aside. Reaching for the buttons of my shorts, I undo them one by one, with trembling fingers, because what I do remember is his hands doing this. His hand slipping past the hem of my underwear. His fingers moving against me, curving inside me.
I can’t do it.
My hands cover my face.
“I’ll wait right outside,” Rhett says gently.
I want to ask him to stay. It chokes in my throat, and when I let him leave I release my pain. I trained so hard. I didn’t want to be helpless. Yet I feel like I”ve let myself down.
When I step into the shower I lather my body with soap. I wash my hair and hiss at the wound from Micah slamming me to the door. The reminder breaks me, and I cry, sinking down in the shower to release some of the pressure building in me while the water muffles the sound. I don’t stay down for long when my anxiety that Rhett could leave climbs through my grief. I scrub my skin raw quickly and wash my face.
Stepping out, my stomach flutters at the folded pajamas Rhett must have found in the bedroom, along with a fresh towel slung on the heated rail.
I dry and change quickly, giving my hair a quick towel-dry too before I emerge into the bedroom. He’s not here, and I immediately head into the open kitchen/living area. My heart stops speeding when I find him by the fridge.
“You were quick,” he says, closing it after finding two bottles of water.
“I missed you.” It tumbles out of me. I mean it far more than just during my stupid ten-minute shower.
I don’t want to cry anymore, but I can’t fucking stop. I’m so, so exhausted, but I’m glad for it. This kind of tiredness is all for him. I don’t want to miss a second, a flicker, anything, now he’s back with me.
“You left so quickly, so sudden,” I croak. “I don’t think I can survive it again.”
When he’s close enough I wrap my arms around him, listening to his heartbeat.
“I’m not going anywhere without you, baby.” He presses a cold bottle to my hands when I let him go. “I’m so fucking sorry, Ana. Everything you’ve been through is because of me. Of everything that’s happened to me, that is my greatest punishment.”
“I’m sorry too, but not for that. Everything that’s happened to me ... I would choose to go through it again if it brought me back to you in the end.”
Rhett kisses my forehead with a sigh. “I have a lot to say about that, but all that matters is you right now. Are you hungry?”
I think I should be, but my emotions are crashing too much to let me feel it. “Maybe a little,” I say.
“Good. I ordered Italian.”
For the first time since he left, a short, breathy laugh escapes me. My fingers clench the new T-shirt he put on. “We have a lot to talk about,” I say, meeting his troubled eyes.
He’s shielding a lot from me right now, as if I’m the more damaged one when he was held captive and tortured for months.
“Not tonight,” he says, taking my hand and leading me over to the sofa.
He picks up one of the thick throws and makes me sit with it while he wanders over to the strip fireplace. He’s clearly encountered one before as he knows exactly how to light it.
Rhett comes back to me and lifts a bottle from the table, tipping two Advil into his palm and offering them to me. They’re a relief to my throbbing head, and I throw them back, taking a drink of water. After I do, Rhett examines my head.
“It doesn’t look like it needs stitches,” he says, his voice hushed as if speaking any louder will shake it with anger.
“You look worse than me.” I observe each cut and bruise on him.
“Nothing on me hurts more than seeing a wound on you.”
When he sits on the sofa, we maneuver like magnets until we’re both lying in a comfortable entanglement.
He murmurs over our peaceful silence, “I missed you, Ana. For 126 days. You’re right here in my arms and I still miss you.”
My brow pinches and my eyes close peacefully, sinking into him further. “It’s not over,” I say.
“Not even close.”
“Tomorrow. We’ll face it tomorrow, together.”