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“I remember, and you told me I was shit at reading the room.”
Pushing between me and the sink, Eve brushes her hands over my chest. Sadness darkens her eyes, drawing her youthful features into a severe, stricken expression.
“She died,” Eve whispers, touching her forehead to my chest. “There were complications when I was born, and she bled out.”
A sense of relief washes over me while at the same time a sense of overwhelming sympathy and sorrow wrenches deep inside me. This explains why she got so upset.
“I’m so sorry, darling.” My arms wrap around her, holding her to me for as long as she’ll allow.
“I inherited this stupid disease from her, and I’m scared that I’ll end up like her.”
Eve pushes away from me as I reassure her that it’s not going to happen. “I told you I wouldn’t let that happen.”
“I can’t have children, Henry. I don’t want to.” The statement hits me square in the chest. A sucker punch that makes it impossible to reply.
Yes, I’m pissed at my mother for bringing the topic up. But she’s right—Eve would make beautiful babies with her milky skin and golden hair. It seems sinful to deprive the world of that—mini Eves. Stunning girls with light brown eyes and fiery attitudes to keep us on our toes.
A voice in my head keeps telling me she’s nineteen. She has time to change her mind. But the grave, unmoving expression on her face tells me that she’s nineteen going on thirty. If any other woman would have told me they don’t want children, I would’ve shrugged it off because no doubt, I would’ve found a way of changing their mind. However, Eve is not just any woman. She’s possibly the most headstrong person I know.
As clearly as I can picture those little girls we might’ve had, it stands to reason that they wouldn’t exist without her. If the choice is between Eve and a future that won’t happen without her, then it also stands to reason that she is the only choice.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to for me.”
“But your mum said that you—”
“Forget what she said. She’s not part of this equation,” I gesture between us. “You and me, Eve, we’re the only people that matter here.”
“Are we?”
“Yes.”
With her narrowed gaze on mine, Eve moulds her hands to my face. The touch is filled with affection. It warms through me, filling all the voids with nothing but certainty that she is the only thing I want. The only thing that matters.
“I won’t change my mind,” she says.
“I don’t expect you to.”
“What if you change yours?”
“Don’t hold your breath, darling.”
“Not even just a little bit?”
The hopeful trill in her voice makes me smile. “Not even a little bit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HENRY
The Ripper: East End killer strikes again.
The headline across the front of the London Telegraph glares up at me from the meeting room table at Hush. I wait to feel something other than indifference. But after the first kill, every mission becomes about getting the job done as swiftly as possible. This is no different to all the times I was flown out to the Middle East on a mission to track down and terminate terrorists and war criminals. This just happens to be on our doorstep.
“This isn’t good,” Julian groans when I sit back in my chair and pour myself another coffee.
“I don’t know about that,” I tell him, pointing to the paragraph where they attribute my killings to gang-related crime. A war of turfs or perhaps just simply revenge. “This is working out just fine.”
Julian stops his pacing to level me with a glower. “They’re calling you the Ripper. You’re all over the fucking news…”
