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“Do you?” Brooke looked around the expensive loft. Ruby knew she was calculating the designer furniture, the multimillion-dollar view, the luxury kitchen. “Because it kind of seems like you’re playing house with a guy like the ones that killed mom.”
She said it casually, but it was like a nuclear bomb detonating in Ruby’s chest. The words hit her so hard they almost knocked the wind out of her, and she sucked in a desperate breath, like her lungs had forgotten how to work on their own.
“That’s not fair.” Ruby stood, walking to the big window with its view of Manhattan across the water. “Roman didn’t kill Mom.” She said the words to the glass because she wasn’t sure she could say them to Brooke’s face. “He was just a kid when it happened.”
“Ruby…” This time Brooke’s voice was filled with sympathy.
No, not sympathy. Pity.
Ruby turned to look at her sister. “You don’t know him like I do. And I know that sounds pathetic, that it sounds like I’m under his spell, but— ”
“Aren’t you?” Brooke asked. “I mean, I can’t even blame you, Rubes. You’ve had a tough time, dealing with that shitbag Adam, taking care of Olivia alone. The thing is, youdeservethis.” Ruby couldn’t hide her surprise, but before she could express it, Brooke continued. “You deserve to have some rich guy sweep you off your feet, put you up in a fancy apartment, buy you nice clothes. But Ruby, this isn’t some Wall Street douchebag who wants to make you his sugar baby.”
“I amnotRoman’s sugar baby!” Ruby said, her cheeks flaming.
“So you’re not still fucking him?” Brooke asked.
Ruby’s gaze darted to the hallway leading to Roman’s office and she tried not to think about the other room down that hall — the locked one filled with sex toys that Roman called his playroom. “Could you please lower your voice?”
“Why?” Brooke asked. “I don’t have anything to hide.” She stood and started for the hall. “Actually, I have a few questions for him too, so maybe we should go get him and he can— ”
“Stop it!” she said, hurrying toward Brooke and pulling on her arm. “You’re acting crazy.”
“I’macting crazy?” Brooke stared at her, Ruby’s hand still on her arm. “You’re living with the guy who got you kidnapped, who works with the same people who killed Mom. You’redefendinghim.”
“Just… just stop,” Ruby said. “Sit down and I’ll try to explain.”
Brooke hesitated, then returned to the sofa.
Ruby sat at the other end and rubbed her hands, suddenly sweaty, on her jeans. “I didn’t sleep with him, not at first— ”
“For fuck’s sake, Ruby! You— ”
“Do you want me to explain or not?” Ruby asked. “Because if you’re just going to sit there interrupting and being judgy, you might as well leave. It’s not like you’ve never made bad romantic decisions.”
“I have not made— ”
“You moved in with Hannah two weeks after you met,” Ruby said.
“That was diff— ”
“You quit your job to go to Mexico with Maya and didn’t know she had another girlfriend.”
Brooke sighed and looked at the ceiling, like she might find her patience — or dignity — in the exposed beams of the loft.
“No need to be a bitch,” Brooke said. “You made your point.”
“I tried to leave after Roman got me out of the grain terminal.” This was Ruby’s first in-person visit with Brooke since her kidnapping, but they’d talked on the phone and texted almost every day. Brooke knew what had happened to Ruby. “I hated him, wanted nothing to do with him. Then, when I realized it was safer — for me and everybody else — to stay hidden, I kept my distance. I told myself — and him — that I was leaving as soon as it was safe.”
“You’re really scaring me with this past-tense POV, Ruby.”
“I was stuck here. Nowhere to go, just books and TV and Roman. It was only natural that we started hanging out. Having meals at the same time, talking, watching movies.” She had a flash of Roman’s scarred, inked body stretched out over hers on the sofa, remembered the way she’d tried not to look at him as he’d fucked her. He’d been wounded after and the pain of hurting him still pierced her chest like a spear. “And it all just…” She took a deep breath. “It all just reminded me of why I’d fallen so hard for him before everything went to shit.”
“None of that changes that he’s a criminal, Ruby. That he works for the fucking Mafia. Worse than that! He’s one of its leaders,” Brooke said.
“I know, and I’m still trying to figure this all out. I’m not saying I’m going to marry him, I’m just saying…” Ruby sighed. “I actually don’t know what I’m saying. Maybe just that my life is a shit show and I need some time to sort it all out.”
“The longer you take to do that, the harder it’s going to be.” The judgment in Brooke’s voice was gone. Now she just sounded sad and worried.
