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The words echoed in his mind. True, but too pathetic to be uttered.
“No,” he said. “Not usually.”
His father was the exception. Roman knew all about men like Ruby’s ex-husband because he’d been raised by one, a man quick to anger and even quicker to act on that anger. A man who might be laughing one moment and striking Roman the next.
Roman had learned to play his cards close to his vest with Igor, which was probably why he was so direct with everyone else. There was a kind of freedom in being able to say what you meant. Most people took it for granted.
“I like that,” Ruby said. “As for being lonely… I guess it’s fair to say I get lonely from time to time. It’s so quiet at night, and I can’t usually leave the apartment unless Olivia is with Adam. So I started pasting stuff together one night, and then the pictures got too big for paper so I started buying canvases, and well, it sort of took on a life of its own.”
“Like all great art,” Roman said. “Channeled by the artist, not made from him. Or her.”
Ruby smiled. “Channeled. That feels right.”
Max pulled the car to a stop outside another building and Ruby gathered her things and looked at Roman. “Thank you again. For everything.”
“It’s been my pleasure.” The words had never been more true. For the past hour, he hadn’t once thought abut the bratva, about his plans to seize control, about the challenges ahead.
About his father.
She nodded and looked at Max in the front seat. “Thanks, Max.”
“Anytime,” he said.
She reached for the door and panic welled inside of him. He wasn’t ready for her to go, to disappear into the city, to become someone he’d met once on a very strange day.
He reached out to touch her, careful to be gentle when he laid his hand on her arm. “Ruby…”
She flinched and he pulled his hand away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just… well, I wonder if you might like to have coffee sometime. Or a drink. Or a… a juice box.”
She hesitated, then flashed him a smile tinged with sadness. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. But it’s been so nice to meet you, Roman. Thank you again.”
She slipped from the car before he could say anything else, and he watched as she crossed the sidewalk to her sister’s building, disappearing inside like she’d never been there at all.
7
RUBY
She waited for the glass door to swing shut behind her, then leaned against the wall of the lobby, trying to catch her breath.
What the fuck was wrong with her?
It wasn’t like she never got attention from men. Sure, she was a single mom, and she had a little more padding around the middle (okay, a lot), her frame softer than it had been before Olivia. Guys didn’t fall all over her like they used to, especially when Olivia was with her and she was towing Mr. Frog, Olivia’s favorite stuffed animal, and a purse full of hand wipes and snacks, but she had her share of flirtatious encounters.
And none of them, not one, had made her feel like this.
Her face was hot, and her heart beat like a trapped bird in her chest. She’d wanted to say yes when he’d asked her for coffee, had felt the word on her tongue for the first time since the divorce.
But it would have been a mistake.
Her life was messy and that was putting it mildly. Adam was jealous and possessive. Dangerous. Keeping Olivia’s life normal under those circumstances was already difficult. Add in another man — especially one like Roman — and it would become impossible.
She thought of her mother, wished she were here for the millionth time since she’d found out she was pregnant with Olivia six years earlier. She had no idea what it was like to have a mother during good times or bad, not as an adult anyway. She’d been eleven, on the cusp of adolescence, when her mom had been murdered.
Sorrow seeped through her chest like it always did when she thought of her mom. To read the national news, you’d think New York City was a hotbed of violent crime, but that had never been Ruby’s reality. There were a few areas she’d been taught not to frequent, but for the most part, she felt safe everywhere and always had, taking the subway as a kid and chatting with bodega owners and strangers in the park.
Her mom had felt the same way. She’d loved the city, and Ruby could still remember how she would open her arms on the street and proclaim, “This is New York City, Ruby! You can do anything here!”
