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“This was proposed as a more private alternative,” Roman said, joining her. He took in the old-growth trees shading the house. “Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t disagree.”
When they found Olivia, they would need a place to bring her before they took her back to New York. This would be less sterile and strange than a hotel.
Ruby looked up at him. “Can we go inside?”
He took her hand, savored the way she slipped her fingers into his palm like it was the most natural thing in the world.
His chest swelled with happiness.
Like a fucking sap. He didn’t even like holding hands.
“I’ll get the bags,” Max said, moving to the back of the Rover.
“Leave them,” Roman said. “I’ll help you in a minute.”
Max ignored him and opened the hatch of the Rover anyway.
He didn’t always love the way Max catered to him, and he loved it even less now that Max had been wounded in the shooting at the Orlovs’ funeral. He should have been taking it easy, recovering, but he insisted he was fine, that Roman had taken the worst of it, and there seemed to be nothing Roman could do to deter Max from watching his every move.
Roman led Ruby to the front of the house. They climbed a couple of steps to a shady porch that fronted the house under one of the second-floor terraces.
“It smells so good here,” Ruby said.
Roman inhaled. “It does.”
It smelled earthy, like peat and moss and wet dirt, but like so many things before Ruby, he’d never noticed it before. He was starting to feel like he’d been asleep, walking the planet like a zombie, oblivious to the sights and smells and people around him.
Ruby was awake, always pointing out things he wouldn’t otherwise have noticed. There was something innocent in her pleasure over small things — the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and cold concrete (he’d never noticed concrete smelled different when it was cold), the way the sun slanted over the living room, creating a column of light first thing in the morning, the dew on the petals of flowers set out by flower shops in the morning.
Roman pressed the code Rykov had given him into the keypad and the carved wood door clicked from within.
“Weird to see a keypad on such an old door,” Ruby said.
“Time marches on,” Roman said, waiting for her to step into the house. “Even here.”
Max followed them into the formal foyer. He was carrying all of their bags — including one Ruby had packed for Olivia from the assortment of clothing and toys Roman had purchased for her room at the loft — but he quickly set them all down to take in the grand entry.
“Wow,” he said. “This is wild.”
The ceilings in the foyer rose all the way to the top of the house, a massive chandelier hanging from the center of an elaborately coffered ceiling. The entry was so generous it wasn’t dwarfed at all by the sitting area at one end, a small table surrounded by four chairs on a patterned rug.
An antique grandfather clock ticked against one wall, and a winding staircase, its balustrades intricately carved, led to the second floor.
“This is a lot of house for the three of us,” Ruby mused.
“I’ll take these upstairs,” Max said, picking up the bags.
Ruby shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and looked at Roman. “Now what?”
“We have a meeting later tonight,” Roman said. “We’ll go to dinner first.”
A shadow passed over Ruby’s features and he pulled her into his arms. “What is it?”
“Olivia is here somewhere,” she said. “It seems wrong to go to dinner. Like we’re on vacation or something instead of here to find her.”
Roman looked down at Ruby and stroked her cheek with his thumb. He hated the worry in her eyes, hated that he was responsible for putting it here.
Most of all he hated the feelings that rose within him — the desire to protect her, to do everything in his power to make sure she never had another day of worry.
