Page 136 of Inflict

No other woman would be at his brownstone. Connor didn’t have time for other women, he only had time and the need for one that wasn’t there at all. He didn’t have family—no sisters, mother, or cousins that might show up.

No, only her.

Evelyn.

“Connor, there was something else,” Killian shouted at his back. “Someone else!”

Connor didn’t wait to hear what, or who, it was; he was already out the pub’s door, letting it slam shut with a loud bang as he headed up to the busy street.

An hour and a half away …

He’d make it in forty-five minutes, if he didn’t get pulled over.

• • •

Connor didn’t even bother to cut the engine of his truck as he pulled over in front of his brownstone. He was sure he’d broken at least a dozen or so traffic laws, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care as he pushed out of the vehicle and headed for the front door.

He didn’t bother to pull out his own set of keys for the brownstone, knowing he likely wouldn’t need them. Evelyn had taken his spare set of keys, after all.

She had a way to get in.

When she came back.

When …

Connor threw open the front door with a hell of a lot more force than was necessary, but he couldn’t have stopped himself, even if he wanted to. There was far too much of him—a huge piece of him—that was gone, that had been missing, for the three long months that Evelyn had disappeared from his life.

He just wanted it back.

The moment his eyes adjusted between the bright sunlight outside, to the dim light of the brownstone’s front entrance, Connor froze again.

There she stood, different in several ways, but still the very same.

She wore a dress that swept the floor, an ombre-colored number with a slit all the way up the thigh, and his leather jacket over top. Gone was her long hair, instead sheared off just below her jaw, and a lot lighter in color, as though it had been bleached a bit in the sun. Bangles covered both her wrists, and she must have learned how to wield a stick of kohl and tube of lipstick while she was gone.

So different.

Entirely the same.

“Evelyn.”

She looked up from her fidgeting hands, meeting his gaze with a soft smile. “I did say I would come back, Connor.”

He thought he would be angry when he saw her again. That all his futile efforts to find her, all his pain and confusion from being left alone, would rush out the first chance he was able to speak.

None of that happened.

Connor only felt … calm.

All those pieces of himself that had been slowly stripped away and ripped from his soul were sewn back in damn near instantly, and all it took was a single smile from her.

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn said.

“For what?” Connor asked. “Because there’s a lot, love.”

“All of it.”

“Mommy!”