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“I know.” And Ruby did know. Her growing feelings for Roman were a constant reminder that she was in dangerous waters.
“I’m just so fucking worried about you, Rubes. Dad’s worried too.”
“I know,” Ruby said. “I’m sorry. But I promise I’m okay. Roman’s going to help me find Olivia. Then I’ll be able to think straight.”
She couldn’t tell Brooke about the bedroom Roman had created for Olivia. That she’d found it behind the locked door in the hall across from her own bedroom at the loft. That it was an almost-exact replica of Olivia’s bedroom at the apartment she’d shared with Ruby.
It was the most thoughtful thing anyone had done for her, for Olivia. If they found her — when they found her — Ruby would be able to bring her back to a familiar place while they figured out what to do next.
But she could see how it might look to Brooke. Like Roman was weird, controlling. Like he was pulling strings to keep Ruby with him.
It wasn’t like that, but it would be impossible to convince her sister.
Brooke worried her lower lip between her teeth, something she did when she was thinking. “I see your point about Olivia at least. I’m assuming this guy has connections?” She looked around the loft like she was expecting to find the answer to her own question. “He definitely has money.”
“He has both,” Ruby affirmed. She'd decided to stay with Roman long before Olivia went missing with Adam, but if it made Brooke feel better to believe Ruby was staying so Roman could help her find Olivia, so be it.
At least it would buy her some time to sort out everything else.
Brooke sighed. “Okay, Ruby. I trust you to know what’s best.”
Any other time, the vote of confidence would have boosted Ruby’s morale. Now it felt like a kind of ominous foreshadowing. Because while Brooke might be telling the truth about trusting Ruby’s judgment, Ruby didn’t trust herself when it came to Roman.
Not even a little.
8
ROMAN
“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here?” Ruby asked as they stepped into the swanky downtown elevator.
“I’m sure,” Roman said.
He knew she had cabin fever. Between the three weeks she’d been held prisoner by his father’s men in the grain terminal and the two months she’d been holed up in the loft since her rescue, it had been a long time since she’d been able to move around freely.
After her initial frustration, she’d settled into it — validation for his belief that deep down, Ruby wanted someone to take control — but he still hated that she was trapped.
He tried not to think about Ruby’s submissive tendencies as the elevator glided upward. He’d been wanting to take her to his playroom from the moment he’d met her, but her abusive relationship with Adam and her subsequent kidnapping had complicated matters.
He tried to see it as a good sign that she hadn’t been horrified when she’d broken into the locked room filled with instruments of control and pleasure. If anything, she’d seemed curious — about the instruments in the room and Roman’s enjoyment in using them.
But it hadn’t come up again. They’d spent a night together after his beating at Basil’s and then the shooting had happened at the funeral. He’d spent the next week in the hospital and Ruby had been treating him like a wounded animal ever since, doting on him and carefully redressing his wound when all he really wanted was to pick her up and carry her to the playroom, put her on her knees, and play.
Fuck. He was hard again, tempted to pull the alarm on the elevator, back her up against the mirrored interior, slip his hands inside her jeans and into her slick pussy, watch her eyes close and her luscious lips part while she came.
The elevator doors slid open.
Get it together, man.
He was a man with heady appetites.
For violence. For sex.
And it had been too long since he’d enjoyed either.
But now was the time for business, and he took Ruby’s arm and guided her out of the elevator, ordering his cock to stand down.
They emerged into a luxurious lobby like a million others in the city, but that was where the resemblance ended. Instead of a smartly dressed receptionist smiling a warm welcome, they were met by the critical scowl of an enormous man with the short haircut of a soldier.
