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Almost as if he already knew.
Despite Ron’s devastation at losing everything in the apartment, his concern was predominantly for Eve and Mila, and despite the jealousy that burns through me at how much of Eve’s heart the flamboyant man seems to occupy, I can’t help but feel grateful for the way he provides the support that Eve see
ms to need.
“So,” Ron drawls out, his eyes on me. “You and Eve, huh?”
My hands are in my pocket as I eye him, warily. Eve went to the bathroom.
“You got a problem with that?”
Ron grins at me, his smile still a little woozy. “Nah, man. I told her to give you a chance. You don’t come across somebody who looks at you like they worship you every day.”
The sly look in his eyes makes me want to both laugh and sigh.
“I don’t trust your boyfriend,” I say, quietly.
The laughter fades from Ron’s eyes, something troubling flitting over his face before he forces out. “Mark loves me.”
His voice wobbles as if he doesn’t quite believe it himself.
Mark, who is in the kitchen, isn’t close enough to overhear our conversation, and I step closer under the guise of leaning over and picking up a magazine. “Is he really just a gallery owner?”
Ron’s is quiet. “He owns a gallery.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I love him.” There is steel in Ron’s eyes, which tells me all I want to know.
Mark is hiding something, and Ron is determined to protect him at all costs, despite not knowing what exactly his lover is hiding.
When Mark enters the room, his eyes automatically go to Ron, and he sees the way the latter chooses not to maintain eye contact.
An accusatory look burns into the side of my skull, but the gallery owner keeps his cool, walking over to sit beside Ron, yanking up the blanket to cover him. “You should lie down now. You’ve seen Eve. You have no more excuses not to rest.”
I nod. “It would be for the best.” And because Ron is so important to Eve, I hand a card to Mark. “My personal family physician. If you need a discreet house call.”
I see the shift in Mark’s eyes when he sees the name on the card.
Son-of-a-bitch.
Mark knows him.
My suspicions grow, and I suddenly have a bad feeling about this. As if somebody is pulling all of our strings and I have a sickening feeling I might know who.
Just then, Eve walks out, and I decide it is time to leave.
It is when we are in the car that Agatha’s name shows up on my cell phone. Putting her on Bluetooth speaker, I hear her voice, thin and angry. “Zayn, it’s on the news!”
I blink. “What is?”
“An attack on Ron Christenson, Eve’s roommate, except that it says that he shot himself high in the airport. That’s not all.”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel, my voice deceptively soft as I wrap the leash tighter around my barely controlled anger. “Oh, no?”
Agatha sounds grim. “They’re calling him Mila’s birth father. They got her name. Entertainment Tonight is also blasting Eve as an irresponsible parent who chose to live with a drug addict and who’s exposed her child to such a man. She’s being thrown under the proverbial bus because her connection to you is being labeled as the alleged ‘baby father’ pimping her out. There’s more, Zayn. And it’s really bad.”
I glance at the way Eve’s hand curls under her seat, her face white as a sheet.
