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“You can go, Anya,” he says firmly, never taking his eyes off of me. “Cora needs to rest.”
Without another word, Anya stands up. She pats her brother’s shoulder softly before she closes the door and leaves us alone.
58
CORA
The room shrinks around us. He’s standing a dozen feet away, but he might as well be breathing down my neck the way my heart is hammering against my ribs.
I can’t have him.
He doesn’t want me.
This isn’t real.
This.
Isn’t.
Real.
I repeat the words to myself again and again as if my mind might be able to keep my heart in line. Like there’s a chance I can wrangle the feeling running wild in my chest, the one mewling and pawing to get close to the man in front of me.
“You’re awake.” His amber eyes see everything. There isn’t a molecule of me he doesn’t examine and make note of.
“I woke up a few minutes ago. Anya was with me. She said you left.”
“I had things to take care of.”
“People to take care of, you mean?” I look him over for any signs of injury. For blood splatter or bruises. I don’t see anything. But I can’t imagine he’d let this sin go unpunished.
His fists clench at his sides. Bands of muscle flex and contract across his arms, shifting the dark tattoos that swirl over his skin. “The man who shot at you is dead. If there was anyone else working with him, I’ll find them all. Every single one.”
God help those people.Wrath clouds his expression. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that look.
“Thank you. For… Well, I don’t remember everything that happened.”
With each blink, I see Ivan kneeling next to me in the bakery bathroom. I see him looming over the dark shadow of my attacker. I feel his warmth wrapped around my body. I smell his musk.
I have to shake my head to clear the bits of memory like rocks from my shoe. “Thank you for saving me.”
“You shouldn’t have needed saving,” he growls. “None of this should have happened.”
“We knew this was a risk. Getting nibbled is the fate of the bait, right?” I try to smile to lighten the mood, but it doesn’t lighten the heaviness in my chest.
Ivan goes perfectly still. His jaw works back and forth, back and forth.
I sit up, clutching the comforter against my chest. “I’m okay, Ivan. I feel fine.”
“You weren’t fine,” he spits. “You were practically unconscious on the bathroom floor. You almost—They tried—He fucking shot at you.”
“And you saved me. I’m fine.”
“Stop saying that. Just stop.” A deep growl rumbles through his chest as he stalks to the bed. He claims the spot Anya was just in, his body brushing against my thigh. “You should be upset, Cora. The last time we spoke, you were mad. Be mad at me. Be furious.”
Our last interaction rises up between us like smoke, obscuring everything else.
I was mad that Ivan didn’t want me. That he could so easily say I would never be the right woman for him.
