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10
Roman
She put down the grilled cheese and gripped the table like a lifeline. He watched helplessly, wanting to take away the pain she was feeling — the pain still to come — but knowing he couldn’t.
“Breathe,” he said.
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, her chest rising and falling more slowly over several breaths.
She was heartbreakingly beautiful despite the fact that her face was gaunter than it had been before she’d been kidnapped by his father, deep shadows under her blue-green eyes.
When he’d first met her, she’d seemed as strong as steel. Then, after he’d gotten to know her, he’d seen the vulnerability that was hiding under layers of strength and trauma. Now she was more vulnerable than ever, and he wondered if it had been a mistake to put the doctor on standby until after she’d eaten and rested. He’d wanted to give her time, to tell her about Olivia and Adam, but maybe he should have insisted on the doctor first.
“Have some water,” he said.
She took a drink from the third bottle of water, following his command like a child, then drew in a deep breath.
She exhaled slowly.“Keep going.”
“My father contacted me shortly after you went missing to negotiate your release,” Roman said. “But no one else seemed to know where you were or what had happened to you. Your father and Brooke held press conferences, pled for your return, but Adam was never there and his custody of Olivia seemed too easy… planned.”
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
It pained him that she didn’t want to believe Adam Hale was a psychopath after all he’d done to hurt her, but it hurt him more that he had to prove it to her.
“He picked Olivia up from school the day you went missing,” Roman said. “Didn’t miss a beat.”
She bit her lip, her brow furrowed in concentration. “It was a… Monday when I was taken?”
He nodded.
She swallowed hard enough that he saw her slender throat ripple, and he gave her a minute to take in the information.
“Could the school have called him when I didn’t show up to get her?”
“He didn’t wait for the end of the school day. He signed her out at recess,” Roman said.
He could see her doing the math in her head — Olivia picked up by Adam at recess, well before Ruby’s shift had ended at Roasted. Well before she’d been kidnapped, proving Adam knew in advance that Ruby wouldn’t be at pickup later that day.
“Should I bother asking how you know all this?”
He held her gaze. “I’ve made it my business to know all kinds of things about you, Ruby.”
She broke eye contact, her cheeks flushing as she reached for her spoon.
He let the silence settle between them while she tasted the soup, then proceeded to take several more bites, probably processing everything he’d told her so far.
“Did you tell my family about your father?” she asked after a couple of minutes.
“That would have been dangerous for them,” Roman said.
“So they have no idea what happened to me?”
“No, but you can call them after you eat,” he said.
“Are you saying I’d need your permission?”
“Of course not.”
