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She smiled at the childhood nickname Brooke hadn’t used in years. “I was, but I’ll be okay now. I think I just need to eat and sleep a ton.”
“And you’re sure you’re safe there?” Brooke asked, lowering her voice like she was telling Ruby a secret. “Withhim?”
Ruby looked around the loft, took in its high ceilings and soaring factory windows, the brick wall that ran the length of the living and dining areas and the security system that blinked from a panel on the wall.
“I do,” she said. “He has men guarding the place.”
“Jesus, Ruby.”
“I’m fine,” Ruby said. “I’m going to eat now. You have my new number. Text me.”
“I love you,” Brooke said. “I’m so happy you’re okay.”
“I love you too,” Ruby said.
She slipped the phone into the pocket of her hoodie and leaned toward the wall of glass, craning her neck to see the street below, where two men in leather jackets stood a few feet apart.
She was glad to see them, to confirm with her own eyes that they were there, but she knew they weren’t the reason she’d been telling Brooke the truth about feeling safe.
And it wasn’t the fortress like loft either.
It was Roman.
There were a thousand and one reasons she shouldn’t feel safe with him, but deep inside, locked away from Brooke and everyone else who would think she was crazy, she did.
She turned away from the window and headed for her room at the end of the hall. She didn’t want to think anymore.
About anything, but especially about her conversation with Brooke.
Because if Ruby really felt safe with Roman Kalashnik, she was in more trouble than she’d thought.
14
Roman
Roman sat in the backseat of the Rover, his eyes on the street. The spa on Fifth Avenue was tucked discreetly between Cartier and Zara. Occasionally, a well-heeled woman would emerge from behind the red door of the spa or step from a chauffeured car toward it, but so far, not the woman he was looking for.
“Think she’ll play?” Max asked from the driver’s seat.
It was strange to sit in the back of the car — it was something his father did when he was driven around with Konstantin, his ever-present watchdog — but it was necessary for today’s mission.
“Fifty-fifty,” Roman said.
He didn’t want to think about what would happen if the mission wasn’t successful, so he turned his thoughts to Ruby instead, wondered what she was doing.
Having her at the loft for the past week had been torture. It was the least he deserved after what he’d done to her life, but it had created a kind of madness in him, knowing she was right down the hall, that she slept in the room next to his.
She’d made herself scarce in the loft — he was pretty sure she tried to avoid him — but every now and then he would see her in the kitchen or the hall. Then they would speak politely, edging past each other like strangers.
He would catch her scent — the jasmine body wash he’d found that smelled like the one she’d used before her kidnapping — when they were strangers getting to know each other. Then his body would respond, his cock hardening, the desire to crush her mouth under his, to unlock the door to his playroom — a room he hadn’t entered since his first date with Ruby — overwhelming.
But it was too late for all of that. She despised him, and he needed no further evidence of that fact than her complete and utter avoidance of him.
He didn’t blame her. The best thing he could do was eliminate his father as a threat, destroy Adam Hale so he could never threaten or hurt Ruby again, and return her to the quiet life she’d built for Olivia.
Which was why he was sitting in front of the spa, watching the women come and go from its red door.
Finally, he caught sight of a polished brunette emerging from a car, the door opened by a suited driver who was clearly packing, his coat bulging with a weapon.
