Chapter 10 #2
“The car’s done for, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry. But my penthouse isn’t far. Come home with me, Devon. Get some rest while my personal mechanic works on it and in the morning, I’ll take you home.”
She looks at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“Come home with you? Are you—”
Several claps of thunder make her jump and somehow, the downpour gets heavier.
Whatever argument resting on her tongue is swallowed and she presses her lips together. “Fine.”
It’s not how I dreamed of bringing Devon back to my penthouse, but it works.
After ensuring Martin will be safe until George can reach him, I take Devon with me through the flooded New York streets.
She walks close to me, huddled in on herself under my umbrella while I carefully keep my stride in pace with hers so she doesn’t have to rush.
She doesn’t speak, but there’s a touch of visible relief on her wet features when we finally make it the two blocks to the lobby of my building.
Her eyes widen as she gazes around at the shiny floors, the exquisite art hanging at the entrance, and the deep mahogany desk behind which sits an armed guard who nods at me in greeting.
They glance Devon over but don’t speak as we hurry to the elevator.
“You really live here? In a place like this?”
Her words tremble almost as violently as her body as she stands a few feet away from me in the elevator.
“Yes,” I reply, fighting the urge to apologize. “My family owns this building.”
“Wow.” She gazes up at the small crystal lights, then behind her to the mirror that reflects how we both look like two drowned rats.
Her expression warps slightly at the sight of herself, and it somehow makes me immediately want to distract her.
“How is your arm?” I ask quickly. “Keeping that cast dry in the storm must have been tough.”
She glances down at it and slowly flexes her fingers. “The edges are a little damp but I think it will be okay. They told me not to get it wet, but it was kind of unavoidable.”
“If you have concerns, we can get you another.”
“Because what’s another couple of thousand onto that debt, right?” She meets my gaze but despite the bite in her words, the fire is dying in her eyes.
It’s replaced by weariness.
I have so many questions about how she even ended up wandering the streets, but they all seem pointless when the doors slide open to my penthouse and she steps out onto the fluffy rug with a grimace.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “My shoes will ruin your floors.”
“Nonsense.” I smile as I move past her. “Remember, fabric can be replaced. It’s all just stuff.”
“You have a hell of a lot of stuff.” She gazes around, and I can see the judgment in her eyes, but there’s awe as well while I lead her down the short hallway toward the lounge.
She observes the flower-filled vases that line the walls, paintings of landscapes hanging between them, and then the lounge.
It’s a burgundy and oak scheme, so warmth radiates from it despite how unlived in it looks at a glance.
With three corner sofas creating shape around a firepit that flickers to life as soon as I turn on the light and floor-to-ceiling windows that show nothing but darkness due to the storm raging outside, the air feels close and warm.
Devon’s teeth chatter next to me.
“Take those stairs.” I point past her to a column of stairs that rise around a stone pillar to the next floor. “My bedroom is up there and my bathroom. You’re frozen to the bone, and I don’t want you to get sick, so please take a bath. Warm yourself.”
She looks like she wants to refuse, but the temptation must be too much for her.
After a pause, she nods and glances at me. “Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. It’s the second door on the left. Are you hungry?”
As she walks toward the stairs, she hesitates. “Not really.”
“Not really as in you’re not hungry or you’re too polite to ask for something?”
Her eyes narrow at me, but it lacks the previous anger. She seems almost curious. “Maybe. I’m honestly too cold to think.”
I nod and tilt my head upward. “Take a bath. Take as long as you need.”
She watches me for a few seconds and her lips part as if something else is on her mind, but whatever it is never makes it out.
Instead, she flashes a brief smile and climbs the stairs out of sight.
For the first time since I saw her drenched on that street corner, I feel like I can finally breathe.
She’s here.
She’s safe.
That’s what matters.
I shed my clothes in the laundry room and toss them into the washing machine while toweling myself dry.
As I work, the pipes above clunk softly, indicating that she’s found the bathroom and is well on her way to warming up with a bath.
I should make her something to eat, although it is late. Maybe something to drink instead.
As I’m changing into loose gray joggers and a black tank top, it hits me that Devon doesn’t have dry clothes herself.
Rummaging through my dry basket, I pick out a light blue T-shirt and black joggers, fold them neatly, and carry them through my penthouse to my bedroom.
Padding softly across the thick red carpet, I’m in the process of setting the clothes down on the bed when a squeak of alarm from the bathroom catches my ear.
I shouldn’t look but the door is ajar, and that noise pulls at every protective instinct inside me.
Did she fall?
Is she hurt and she didn’t tell me?
Do I announce my presence and ask her if she’s okay?
Before I can bring myself to speak, she moves in the bath and I glimpse her through the gap in the door, bathed in the golden lights above.
She seems fine at a glance as she leans forward while holding her broken arm aloft.
Her squeal seems to have come from some of the bathwater sloshing over the side and onto the tiles, but that doesn’t bother me.
But then something does.
My breath catches in my throat and my relaxed heart begins to pound furiously as my spying grants me a sight I’m never meant to see.
A sight that equal parts angers and pains me.
Devon’s back is a patchwork of scars ranging from long and thin to short and fat.
They weave from her spine and across her back and then up to a cluster on her shoulder.
Scarring I’d recognize anywhere due to similar scars on my thigh from my father.
Those scars are from cigarette burns.
Who the fuck hurt her?