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And he wasn’t there to say goodbye to her. He was gone, her bright burning tiger.
This was over.
When she arrived at the hotel—one of his—there were instructions waiting. She could stay there as long as she wished, and then after the concierge would arrange for her to go anywhere she wanted.
She thought of her tiny apartment back in Georgia.
She had shared it with Jaia but she’d abandoned it—and her—for this life in Europe, like it wouldn’t have an end. But it had.
She had no job to go back to.
But now she could go anywhere. Do anything. And Krav had given her the key to that, even as he’d crushed something in her she thought she’d never get back. It felt like a metaphor and one she was going to seize.
She had the ticket. She just needed to be brave enough to take the first step.
She’d been lost in a fairy tale for a moment, lost in pleasure. It was over now, but there was something beyond that.
But if she’d learned one thing in life it was that she couldn’t waste her time, her energy or her emotions on other people. He didn’t want to be in her life.
Better than that, he’d given her the path to a new one.
This was the journey she’d been brought here to go on. She just hadn’t known it.
And so she went to England, because she’d always wanted to go. She’d started in London and ended up going north, to a small village where she worked in a café and got to know everyone.
She went to a doctor, where she found out she hadn’t miscarried after all.
She’d bent at the waist, sitting on the medical table and wept. Joy. Sorrow. All cascading through her like endless rain.
How was it possible?
A baby. The baby wasn’t gone. Krav was gone. The life she’d thought they would have, that was gone.
Because the man she’d thought he was...he didn’t exist.
But this child did.
Her child.
Hers.
Not Krav’s.
Just hers.
The doctor held her hand while she cried, and then he gave her a bunch of pamphlets explaining her every option. She took them all, because it seemed responsible. But she didn’t need to look at options.
She was keeping the baby.
And she wasn’t even afraid. She’d found a life, a community. The older woman she rented a room from had been sweet and nonjudgmental, happy for her in a way Riot knew her mother certainly wouldn’t have been.
It would be okay. Everything would be okay. She’d do just fine here in this little village that had adopted her as their American mascot. They liked her accent and they liked her. And this was all part of the new adventure she was on. One that was certainly happier and more filled with hope than anything before it had been.
Everything was perfect—except sometimes she thought of Krav and the heat between them.
And how he’d broken her heart in ways she didn’t think she’d ever recover from.
She’d trusted him. In a way she’d never trusted another person. Enough to be naked with him. Enough to feel safe. She’d finally believed...
