27. Anastasia
We’re woken by loud pounding at my door. I lunge up from the couch we fell asleep on, as does Rhett. Somehow there’s already a gun in his hands, and I can barely breathe through my heart beating in my throat.
“Go to the bedroom and lock yourself in the bathroom,” Rhett orders in a hushed whisper.
He pulls out a phone, but I can’t do as he asks.
Then a voice calls through.
“Anastasia, if you don’t open in the next minute, I’m coming in.”
It’s my dad.
“Shit.” Rhett can’t be seen here. “You have to hide,” I hiss, pushing him, though it’s futile with him being the rock he is.
“It could be a trap,” he protests.
“Ana!” Dad shouts through.
“He’s the fucking president, and he’ll be with a shit-ton of security—go!”
I manage to push him into the bedroom and point in all seriousness to the closet for him to hide before I rush back out.
I hear keys since my dad was adamant to hold a spare set, but I get to the door, hauling it open and setting my flustered, bewildered look on him.
“What time is it?” I demand.
“Past midday,” he says, matching my disapproval.
Well, shit.I’d hoped I could be angry at him for the early intrusion, but ... did we really sleep that late?
He doesn’t wait to be invited in, and that irks me. I don’t want him here even though it’s been weeks since I saw him. He doesn’t know the hell I’ve been through, and I don’t want him to. But Rhett knows, and right now he’s forced to hide when I’m certain my dad would have him arrested on the spot.
It’s something I never considered, and now I’m slammed unexpectedly with the notion, my heart cries. Our relationship was a secret before, but at least we could be seen together. Now, I don’t know if we’ll ever get that again.
“Your mother is worried sick,” Dad rants as he wanders into the living area. Two security follow him in and begin checking the area to clear it for safety. One heads toward the bedroom, and my skin slicks with panic.
“Don’t!” I yell. It’s abrupt, but it works, and they look to my father at the outburst. I scramble to come up with something. “By all means, be scandalized by whatever I’ve left lying around my own fucking bedroom.”
It’s enough insinuation of a lingering sex toy or stray underwear that they second-guess themselves in scoping it out. To my immense relief, Dad gives them a nod and they back away.
He cuts me with a look of warning, however. Then his gaze falls behind me and his face relaxes. I spin, realizing there’s no talking myself out of the obvious two bottles of water and the two plates of leftover Italian food.
“If there’s someone in your bedroom, they have to?—”
“There’s not,” I say, snapping back around. “It was a hookup, and he left this morning. Is that what you want to know?”
His frown smooths out and he sighs deeply, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m glad you’re moving on, Ana. But I hope you’re taking the precautions we talked about.”
Meaning: He hopes I’m getting my one-night stands to sign an NDA.
I grind my teeth. “Did you need something?” I bite out.
“You’ve missed two dinners in a row and haven’t even bothered to pick up the phone. A few text messages were not what we agreed on in letting you live here alone.”
“You can’t let me do anything. I’m not a child.”
“Then stop acting like one!”
My eyes prick. I’m so torn because I can’t even blame his perception of me. To him, to my mom, it’s exactly what I must seem. The agony inside of me wants to be held in his strong arms, which always felt like the safest place in the world. Now that place is Rhett. And my father will never know how I was held captive and assaulted, nearly raped. It’s the first time the term even slithers into my mind, and I want to shower all over again with the shame that coats me.
It was not my fault.
It was not my fault.
Would Dad blame me for it? After all, I willingly took Alistair’s hand. I knew the kind of man he was, and those who worked for him, and I put myself within reach of those vile men.
It was not. My. Fault.
“I’m sorry,” I say, but it’s cold and forced. He knows it.
I’m met with a familiar look—one that can’t seem to settle on anger or disappointment. To me the blade is the same.
“Will you come this Sunday? The Van der Laizes are coming and would love to see you.”
I doubt they’ll care, but I nod.
“Good.”
He takes a step, hesitates, and ultimately decides our tension is too thick to give in to an embrace. Dad leaves without another word, and I shiver at the ice he left behind.
I don’t realize I haven’t moved, still staring at the door and the ghost of him, until Rhett’s arms snake around me. I melt into him—the only sure, warm, and safe thing I know right now.
“What are we going to do?” I whisper against his chest.
“One day at a time,” he says, kissing my head. “We’ll figure it out.”
“He’ll never see you as anything but a criminal.”
“I am nothing but a criminal.”
I pull my head back to peer up with a frown, but the sight of his small smile is such a relief.
“I killed someone,” I say. It’s the first time I truly understand the tarnish on my soul. I don’t think Micah could have survived the half-pencil in his neck. “So I guess I’m one too.”
A muscle in Rhett’s jaw shifts, and he searches my eyes, likely looking for the sign I’m going to break down because of what I did.
“Do you need to talk to someone, Ana?”
He only uses my name when he’s worried.
“I’m talking to you.”
“To someone who isn’t to blame for what happened to you and what you were forced to do.”
“No one forced me. I went with Alistair by choice. I knew what I was doing, as do I now. The only thing I need is you.”
His eyes close as if this hurts him to hear. He can’t back away now.
Rhett’s arms drop from me, and he turns away.
“Don’t leave me,” I say. It slips out in a panic. “Don’t come to some bullshit conclusion that I’d be better off without you after all this.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should,” he snaps. I flinch, and his face turns desolate. “You should,” he repeats in a gentler tone, as if my reaction is all the proof he needs.
“What did he do to you?” I ask again, carefully.
I’m only wearing short pajamas, and suddenly I’m too cold, rubbing my arms.
Rhett wordlessly reaches for the throw on the couch and comes close enough to drape it over me. When he tries to step away again, I grasp the front of his shirt.
“You don’t get to push me away now. I went through fucking hell to find you, and you were captive there, waiting for me. Don’t say you weren’t. That you didn’t want to get back to me.”
“I watched you train, and you were fucking exquisite in doing so. I watched you learn chess with your brilliant mind at work. I watched you pick up a gun and learn to shoot without fear. I watched you in his office, and that was what tormented me the most. Because every time you sat in that chair, I could only see myself. I knew you didn’t want to be there, but you felt like you had to be. I watched you every day.”
I’m trying to figure out why. Why would Alistair have made him watch? He always has a motive.
“What did he make you do?” I ask carefully.
“I can’t,” he says, and I ache at his pain. “I need a while longer to have you look at me like nothing’s changed.”
“Nothing has changed. Not my feelings for you.”
“Stop. Please.”
I can see him struggling against shutting me out. I can be patient for him, but I can’t stand there being any walls between us.
“Then just kiss me. Kiss me like you want to fight for us no matter what we’ve done or might have to do. Because I’m going to fight for you, Rhett Kaiser. Even if you try to get rid of me, I’ll fight you if I have to.”
“So damn stubborn,” he mutters, then his lips crash with mine, and every burden is lost in the heat of what burns between us.
More than ever before, I feel the threads of us entwining. If he left, neither of us would survive it.
Rhett pulls me to him, and I moan into his mouth when his hand trails up my spine under my tank top. “We can’t work,” he says, but he doesn’t stop his assault. “I can’t ever be seen with you, and you deserve someone you can be open and honest with.”
We end up by the couch, and his arm hooks around me to lower us.
“I deserve you,” I say, becoming breathless at the press of his body over mine, sinking us into the couch.
But something strikes alarm in my mind. It comes sudden and terrifying. It tangles this beautiful desire for Rhett with something dark and ugly, and my breath turns labored not through want, but panic.
“Stop,” I rasp, laying a hand on his chest.
Rhett eases off me immediately, sitting beside me, and I push myself up, clutching the blanket to my chest. I scrunch my eyes shut, trying to dispel the wicked thoughts of Micah’s body caging me in instead.
“What happened to you in that room?” Rhett asks.
I can’t look at him. His voice is chillingly calm, trying to be gentle and patient, but it’s like he’s simmering to erupt and kill someone.
“I think I need a while longer too,” I confess.
I think he’s going to leave with the stretch of silence. How can two damaged people ever hope to mend each other? What if there isn’t enough glue and tape and we’re both fucked anyway?
“Can I hold you?” he asks softly.
My lip wobbles, and I nod, shuffling over until I’m lying across his lap.
I say, “I don’t care if you’re my secret forever and my parents have to believe I’ve become celibate.”
Rhett gives a soft chuckle. “You’re prepared enough, at least.”
I’m confused for a few seconds, then heat crawls up my skin as I push off him. His devious look as he tries to appear innocent widens my eyes a fraction more.
He says, “In my defense, I was looking for your pajamas.”
I shift until I’m straddling him. “Everyone knows the top nightstand drawer is off-limits.”
“On the contrary, I think I’ll be visiting that particular drawer very soon.”
My desire doesn’t just come back—it rushes between my legs, and my knees tighten around him subconsciously. Rhett’s hand slips over my bare thighs slowly, watching for my every flicker of reaction before his palms curve over my ass.
“To join or watch me?” I say with an edge of seduction.
“Both.” He squeezes my ass. “When you’re ready.”
I want to say I am. My body certainly agrees. But I’m afraid I could ruin it all if the thoughts of Micah come back. I just need a little time. It’s still so raw and fresh in my mind, and I hope all I need is a few more days, maybe weeks. I can’t let that bastard break off that piece of me and win by keeping it. I’m determined to get it back.
“Soon,” I say, kissing him. “Very soon.”
“We’ll have all the time in the world.”
“Promise?”
He stalls, rethinking his words. “I can’t. Tomorrow is a promise to no one. But until my last day, I’m wholly yours.”