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Roman had been relieved when she’d turned the conversation to him, and he was not someone who enjoyed talking about himself. He hadn’t been sure how much more he could take. Hadn’t been sure he could trust himself not to race from the restaurant and turn the city inside out until he’d found and destroyed Adam Bishop.
He glossed over the details of his business, his father (Ruby didn’t need another tale of abuse, and he didn’t want to give her one), his mother’s slow glide into the apathy that was her refuge.
He didn’t lie. That would be dishonorable given their agreement, given her honesty about the painful details of her life. But he was careful with his choice of words. Even under another circumstance, one in which the bratva wasn’t responsible for her mother’s murder, he wouldn’t have explained his business so soon.
It was too dangerous. For him. For her.
He ignored the voice in the back of his head that told him he’d have to tell her eventually, that Ruby Bishop wasn’t just another woman who would disappear from his life.
That he wouldn’t let her.
“What about your brother? Erik, is it?” she asked, nibbling on the plate of orange slices that had arrived with their bill nearly an hour before. “You haven’t said much about him.”
Roman toyed with the tiny teacup, inspected the dregs of green tea that floated in the bottom. “My brother is a drug addict.”
No harm in telling her the whole truth about that.
Her scrumptious mouth turned down into a frown. “I’m sorry. Has he… been to rehab? Tried to get help?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a bed with his name on it in perpetuity,” Roman said. “Like one of those benches you see in the parks dedicated to people who have died.”
“That must be hard,” she said.
He shrugged. “It can be. We have windows of civility when he’s trying to stay sober. The rest of the time, I try not to engage with him.”
He couldn’t tell her that their business only complicated matters, their father’s obvious soft spot for Erik only adding to the antipathy between Roman and his younger brother, especially when Erik campaigned for more responsibility in the business, responsibility that would clearly be misplaced.
She nodded. “I can understand that.”
“What about you and Brooke?” Roman asked. “Are you close?”
She rolled her eyes with a smile. “Close like a den of vipers. We’d do anything for each other but we still argue like twelve-year-olds. I’d be lost without her. She and my dad help so much with Olivia so I don’t have to pay for childcare. I think in a lot of ways my mom’s murder made us closer.”
“That must speak to your closeness before her death,” he said. “In my experience, tragedy and crisis only amplify what’s already there. Some families fall apart. Yours became even closer.”
“I just…” A lock of burgundy-streaked hair fell across her cheek, and he resisted the urge to reach across the table, tuck it behind her ear. He already knew if he started touching her, he would never want to stop. “I just miss her, you know? Not just the her I knew as a kid, but the her she could have been now.” Ruby laughed a little. “She would never have allowed me to marry Adam. She would have spotted the red flags a mile away, would have told me not to be ridiculous, that I was too young. And honestly, I may not have looked twice at Adam if it hadn’t been for her death anyway. And now…”
“Now?”
“She would have been an amazing grandmother to Olivia. I wish Olivia knew what it was like to have one of her hugs or to hear my mom laugh until she cried. I wish she knew how much fun it was to sing in the kitchen while baking a cake.”
Roman smiled. “Did your mom like to bake?”
“She did, and cakes specifically. She always said every day should be a celebration and a celebration called for cake.”
“Words to live by,” Roman said.
She beamed. “Right?”
The sound of a vacuum cut through the moment. Roman looked around and realized the restaurant was empty, the staff clearly cleaning up for the night.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was so late. Your daughter — ”
“Is with Adam tonight,” Ruby said. “I’m really grateful for this actually. It’s… hard to go back to the apartment alone on his nights.”
“I can imagine.” He couldn’t though. He had no idea what it was like to love someone so much you missed them when they were gone.
Roman left a stack of bills on the table — enough to pay the tab and more than compensate the server who’d lost tips from other diners while Roman and Ruby occupied the table all night — and they left the restaurant and stepped out onto the street.
