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I hug him with light contact, avoiding pressing at his bruises. What would I do if he’d died? I would forever be a broken woman with no hope of healing.
“Rob,” I quaver. “The first rose, the roses yesterday, and most likely your car… I know who did it.”
“Amber-Rose?”
I look into his eyes with hope and honesty. “The thing is, I’m running away from my ex. He’s a violent man. I almost died at his hands, and now it’s likely that he’s found me. His name is Aidan Rolland. I met him in Europe,” I explain, suppressing the trembling inside. “I also received a bloody doll head along with the roses. A warning, I’m sure.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yeah. It was fake blood, and they thought it was just a prank.”
“God, Amber-Rose.” Rob turns to me and pulls me into his embrace. No more a crying teddy desperate to be loved—he’s steely, safeguarding and possessive. “I’ll get that son of a bitch. He’ll never lay a hand on you again. I swear!”
I’m sure Rob will do anything for me, but he’s got to know my story first.
I sit up, arms at my side. “Hold my hand, Rob.”
He sits up too, and then gathers my right hand in his.
“Go on,” I encourage him to do more. “Do it the way you held me on your office couch. The way you held me in the chopper the first time we met.”
And he draws his other hand from under the comforter, and places it on top of my knuckles.
I tremble. “Say ‘Miss, can you hear me’ in French.”
He cocks his head. Tentatively, he says, “Mademoiselle, pouvez-vous m'entendre?”
My eyes can’t contain my tears. I might not have remembered his voice then, thanks to my water-clogged ears, but that was what I heard when I thought I was about to meet my maker.
“Rob, my name is Amalia Rae Scifoni. And my face didn’t use to look like this.”
“Amber-Rose…. you… you’re—”
“Yes, Rob. You pulled me out of the water that night. You saved my life. You saved me from a monster.”
He blows out a sigh, releasing a long-held breath. He heard what I was saying, but from the look in his eyes, only now does he realize what I really meant.
“God, it’s you.” Rob climbs over me, his knees on each side of my thighs. He places his big palms on my cheeks.
“I’m that girl who had slashes across her face, who had lost her cheekbones and nose.”
He caresses my hair while kissing my forehead, my cheeks, and my lips. “No. You’re not that girl,” he rasps softly, shaking his head. “You’re thatfighter. I’d always known you made it.”
I run a finger along the contour of his lips, stopping at his cupid’s bow. He catches the tip and kiss-nibbles it. Then, with an expression like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, he says, “You’re with me now. His days of terrorizing you end here.”
I place my cheek on his chest. The cotton of his undershirt isn’t enough to shield him from me. I feel him.
“I thought of you—well, ‘that fighter’—wondering if you were in the crowd somewhere. The last time I remember thinking about you was at Lake Geneva, before I broke the record. Then the car accident happened, and I honestly never thought of you again.”
There’s a void in me as I consider not being in his thoughts. But that was where our paths met again.
He runs his fingers across my face. He is a formidable man, but as he claimed when we first met, he is gentle. “How did you become Amber-Rose?”
“You must’ve met Captain Clara Cloutier?”
“Oh, her.” There’s dread in his tone. “She wouldn’t let me see you, or tell me anything about you.”
“Because she put her career on the line to give me a new identity, a new life. Clara herself was a survivor. Her husband hit her in the face with a hot pan during one of his violent attacks. She knew how hard it was to get away from an obsessive man. So she was hell-bent on making sure Aidan would never know where I was.”
