Page 19 of Rage

She hadn’t seen him since their accidental weekend together, a weekend she’d replayed over and over again during her imprisonment. Sometimes she’d done it just to pass the time. Sometimes she’d done it to stoke her anger at him, to stop herself from longing for him.

But other times… well, other times she’d done it just to relive it. Because it had been the kind of simple magic she loved best — the Saturday pancakes and the park with Olivia, the hot cocoa and a movie and someone to help her tuck Olivia into bed — and she’d enjoyed sharing the time with Roman more than she dared admit.

But now he was here, staring at her from across the sterile, immaculately designed loft, and he was even more beautiful than she’d remembered. She knew his eyes looked blue in the sunlight, gray in the shadows, but right now they looked black. She thought she’d embellished his gaze in her memory, the way it had felt like he could see right through her, but she felt naked under his gaze all over again.

He was the biggest man she’d ever known, imposing even in the high-ceilinged loft space, his massive shoulders on full display in one of his perfectly tailored button-down shirts.

“Hello,” he said, his voice gruff. “Feel better?”

She walked cautiously toward him, as if toward a bull who could wreak havoc with a single toss of its head, because that was what Roman had done to her life.

His features were strong and angular, the bump on his nose a testament to the many times it had been broken. She knew from their conversations that he was a fighter, knew from the scars under his shirt and the ink on his body — a gladiator standing in front of a mansion — that the enemy he fought was his father.

She had a flash of the old man who’d come to visit her during her captivity and pushed it away.

“I feel human at least,” she said.

“That’s a start,” he said. “You must be hungry.”

“I want to see Olivia.”

“You will,” he said.

She stuffed her hands into the pockets of the tracksuit’s jacket. “I want to see Olivia now.”

He looked up from whatever he was cooking. She smelled butter and melting cheese. “We’ll talk about Olivia while you eat, Ruby.”

A shiver ran down her spine at the sound of her name in his mouth, the command in his voice. She felt chastened, like a child, but also safe like a child.

Roman was in control, but it wasn’t the control that had been exerted over her during her confinement in the grain terminal. It was protective and nurturing. It might even have been parental if not for the way he looked at her, like he was a wolf and she was a mouse who’d just walked into his den.

“Have a seat,” he said, looking from her to the dining room table.

It was long and sleek, a table for wine and dinner parties. Four bottles of water were lined up in front of an empty place setting, a powerful incentive to get her there. She was crazy thirsty.

She crossed the room, feeling his eyes on her the whole time, and slid into the chair.

It was more comfortable than it looked, and she reached for one of the bottles of water, removed the cap, and downed it in one swallow before reaching for the other one.

“Easy,” Roman said from the kitchen. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

She ignored him, downing the other water bottle almost as fast as she’d finished the first, then sat back, feeling slightly nauseous.

She waited for it to pass, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of being right.

She looked around, took in the big room, the walls morphing like magic from white in the living room to slate in the dining room, the furniture modern and obviously expensive. There was actual art on the walls — photographs and paintings — rather than the amateur art Ruby had picked up on the city’s curbs over the years.

There wasn’t a single book or magazine on display. No photographs or candles, no clues about the man cooking her food, the man responsible for both her confinement over the past three weeks and her rescue.

“You live here?” she asked.

“More or less,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure how to answer. “When I’m not working.”

It was a strange thing to say. Everyone lived in their homes when they weren’t working.

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