Page 141 of Inflict

Another way he had been … keeping her.

Connor handed the item over without saying a word.

“What’s this?”

“Something you should have, lass.”

Evelyn’s brow puckered as she tore open the top of the envelope, and pulled out the folded-up pieces of information inside. As the Mass began, and the priest walked down the aisle, Connor stayed quiet, letting Evelyn absorb every piece of information she now held in her hands.

Some of it was her history.

Her real mother, how she had been killed, and Evelyn’s subsequent kidnapping. It held her real birthdate, her actual heritage—born in America to an Irish immigrant, who had turned to prostitution to support her addiction and newborn child—and the last name she had been given at birth.

Some of it was her future.

Documents that would allow her to have a life of her own, with a real name that existed, with him … or not, if she chose.

So much of her life had been inflicted upon her by the people around her—men, mostly. They chose what name she could use, when or if she could speak, what food went into her body, when and with whom she could have sex, or rather, be the warm hole to be filled when they demanded it, and the list went on and on.

Like scars, those inflictions covered her body and her psyche.

Connor was not going to inflict more on her.

“Is this …?”

“It’s you,” Connor said, “and it’s also whoever you want to be, love.”

Evelyn blinked up at him, her gaze becoming wet with tears she allowed to freely fall without wiping them away. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me for something that was never mine to begin with, Evelyn.”

“But I am … yours, Connor.”

He smiled. “As long as you want to be, yes. That’s our deal. You can be mine, but—”

“You don’t own me.”

“Exactly.”

“Mommy?”

The quiet voice drew Connor and Evelyn’s attention to the wee child standing in the aisle, the Sunday school teacher waiting behind her. Ciara looked back at the woman, and then to her mother.

“I don’t want to stay down there,” she whispered.

Connor chuckled, knowing how happy that probably made Evelyn. “It’s all right, lass. I’m sure your mammy doesn’t mind.”

Ciara smiled brightly, and then climbed into the pew, situating herself between Connor and her mother. It put him further away from Evelyn than he wanted to be, but that was okay, too. Once Ciara was settled, Evelyn looked over her daughter’s head to meet Connor’s gaze.

“You know what I would really like?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“To be married in a church like this someday, in a pretty white dress, with you waiting at the other end of it to meet me.”

Connor cleared his throat. “I’m not sure I’m the marrying type, love.”

“Funny, you’re the only man I’ve ever wanted to marry.”