Chapter 12 Amber
AMBER
Roman walked me back toward the bedroom, ushering me away from whatever his brother and assistant were handling for him. The results of an intruder on this stormy night. Other guards were in the background, all of them serious and grim-faced.
“You will be safe,” Roman said as he steered me away from the living room.
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe myself when I repeated the mantra that things would get better and that safety was within my reach—someday, somehow.
Shaken and thoroughly confused, I shook my head now.
“You will be safe,” he repeated, clearly taking my movement as a denial of what he said. “I promise—”
“What happened? What’s going on?” I insisted, walking back with him.
Too many questions pinged in my head, each of them louder and more frantic than the last. The fear of unknowns could weaken me and send me closer to that edge of sanity and craziness, and no matter how many guards he had here and how many relatives were nearby, I had to know that I could be safe here or anywhere.
“Someone attempted to break in,” he said as he urged me to retreat over the threshold of his bedroom doorway.
“They didn’t attempt,” I replied in a rushed hiss of a voice.
I didn’t dare yell or shout, now that we were in here where Emily and Henry remained blissfully ignorant of the mayhem and danger surrounding us.
“Someone did break in. I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep, and when I saw movement out there, I woke you up. ”
He kissed my cheek, urging me to sit next to him on the edge of the bed.
He’d closed the door, shutting off a line of sight to the living room where Sergei and Lorne were… handling the situation. Whatever that meant.
“Good. Good, Amber.” He scooted closer to me. “I’m proud that you could be that quick and smart to react like that. You didn’t shut down.”
I gave him an incredulous look. “Shut down?” I scoffed. “I can’t ever shut down while they’re here.” I pointed at the twins.
He nodded, and I hated that he was trying to placate me. I was too scared, too worked up, to be appeased and coddled. “Roman, what happened?”
“Someone broke in.”
“Why? For what? Who were they and what did—”
He cupped my face, but I flinched a bit.
“No. No kissing me to be quiet.” I sucked in a breath, feeling like I’d run a marathon as I rambled all these questions at him.
“What were they doing here?” I asked.
“Nothing good. And that’s why I went out there to—”
“With a gun,” I added. “You took a gun. You have a gun. I didn’t know you…” I furrowed my brow, picking through the details that stood out the most among the murkiness in my mind. All of what I processed was smeared with fear. “You didn’t shoot. I didn’t hear a gun go off. I didn’t hear anything.”
“No, I didn’t shoot.”
“But they’re not going to fight? And try to…” I shook my head and rubbed my temple. “I saw a man on the ground.”
“I disarmed him.”
“Disarmed? He had a gun too?”
He opened and closed his mouth.
“How… What…” I cringed. Did he kill them?
In a flash, I made up my mind. If he did, I wouldn’t judge.
He wasn’t bluffing when he said he’d keep me safe.
I knew it now with the sober seriousness of his stare on me.
There were too many times I’d dreamed of bad people being killed, like the men William associated with.
Like those creepy assholes who’d appraised drugged-up women the night I knew I had to escape there.
I was a pacifist, but for the sake of self-defense, for survival, I wouldn’t whine about a bad person being killed to spare someone pain.
But he didn’t shoot. He couldn’t have killed them.
“What happens now?” I swallowed hard, latching on to his intense gaze to ground myself. “Someone broke in. You went out there to stop them. And now… now…”
“Now Sergei and Lorne will handle it.”
“Handle it?” I gaped at him. “Yeah, but shouldn’t you call the cops?”
He gave me a funny look, like he was debating his choice of words again.
“Wait.”
No cops.
William knew too many. I didn’t want any authority to know where I was, much less why I was using a fake identity.
“No.” I put my hand on his, and he turned it over to twine our fingers together. “No cops…”
He raised his brows. “I was going to explain that the building’s security team will determine how to handle this.”
That was still vague. He was damningly skilled at telling me something and nothing all in the same stroke.
That wasn’t a confirmation that the cops would be contacted but it wasn’t a rejection of the idea, either.
Yes, they valued their privacy and paid for it, whoever they all were and whatever they all did. But…
I cringed, still so muddled from the panic, the fear, and the confusion. I was bombarding him with questions, popping them out rapid-fire, but it got me nowhere. Until he gave me actual answers, I would remain frustrated.
“Is it safe here?” I asked, hating how broken my voice was.
That was the one question I would always wonder. The huge mystery of life that would always daunt me.
“It is, Amber. I swear to you, you are safe here.”
I winced, wanting to believe him. But how could I? If I hadn’t happened to have been awake at that moment, what could’ve happened? What were they after?
The babies were the most vulnerable in this room, in his home. Until I could guess what he did for work and whether he had any enemies from business, I had to assume Roman wasn’t the target.
But deep down in my panicked heart, I knew the answer to that question.
I was here. I was hiding here and hoping to never be found. Because of that, I was the most vulnerable one here. I was probably the target.
Oh, God…
I curled over, wishing I could ball up and burrow under a dark rock. Nowhere would be safe. No place on earth would shield me from William’s reach. He was too wealthy and had too many favors to cash in on from dangerous men.
“I…”
“Amber. Please, trust me.” Roman gripped my knees gently to turn me. I couldn’t face him, though. I hung my head and prayed I wouldn’t burst into desperate tears at the unfairness of my life.
“I thought it was…” I swallowed back the rest, not wanting to utter his name.
I thought it was William.
I worried that he’d sent someone to come get me.
To drag me away from the twins, from you, from your family. Just to lock me under his control again where he could supervise me at home.
I thought—
A single sob was ripped from me, but I covered my mouth and tried to inhale deeply to cut it out. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t wake the babies and alarm them.
“Amber? You thought it was what?” He tipped my chin up. I blinked at the deep concern hardening his face. “You thought what?”
I forced another swallow, hating that this fear had weakened me to the point that I’d almost blurt it out.
I thought that you’d be hurt. That they’d hurt you to get to me.
It was nothing but cruelty and selfishness to be here and put him at risk. I saw that now. Because William would stop at nothing to get me back.
“I thought it was safe here,” I whispered.
“It is.”
Because if it wasn’t, I had to run. Fast and far. Away from him and these darling babies I was already so attached to.
“Amber. Look at me.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer until I was on his lap. Straddling him. Face to face. In his protective embrace like this, he presented me with an instant shot of desire, but I warred with myself, too cautious to mix his offer of protection with wanting him.
“You are safe here.” He closed the distance between us, kissing me.
The first hit of his warm lips on mind silenced me. Heat followed. Excitement struck. That tension of wanting more and more lit me up on fire.
“I will do everything I can to prove that to you no matter what happens,” he vowed.
I sighed, sagging against him. “But—”
He kissed me again, quieting the panic in my head.
“No buts,” he said once we broke for air.
As he cupped the back of my head and brought me closer for a longer, drugging kiss, I succumbed to the beautiful freedom of surrender, letting him entice me to know that he was right.
Dreaming of a future where I could count on him protecting me—no matter what, no matter the secrets I tried to run from—I lost the willpower to resist. Reminding myself that it was impossible to fantasize about a future with him didn’t work.
Right now, right here, I kissed him back and closed my eyes tight, hungrily accepting his idea of comfort after a hellish scare.