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If things had been different, Cora could be with them. She could have been out there, just a normal girl. I want to ask if she’s thinking the same thing, but she’s clammed up with shock. The only thing that will fix that is time. Even though I want to scrub it all away from her. To take the pain myself.
I can’t. I just have to fuckingwait.
Suddenly, she sits up. “This isn’t the way to the mansion. Where are you taking me?”
“My old penthouse in the city. It’s where I lived before my father handed the mansion over to me.”
She turns to me. I don’t look at her, but even in my peripherals, she’s too much. Her soft curves and strawberries-and-cream scent. Being this close to her after living without is intoxicating. It’s a fucking miracle I can even drive straight.
“You’ll be safe there,” I vow. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She settles back into the passenger seat and the tension consumes us once again.
* * *
I lead Cora inside and bolt the door behind us.
“There’s a security team downstairs monitoring everything.” I point to the wall of windows opposite us. “And that is bulletproof glass. Just in case a shooter climbs twenty-five floors.”
She blinks at me, her green eyes taking in my expression for a moment before she quickly turns away.
Again, the sense that something is wrong gnaws at me. Something beyond the fact that she is wearing a bloodstained wedding gown from a ceremony with another man.
Which is fucking infuriating in its own right.
I turn on the electric fireplace in the sitting room. Flames lick across the screen and heat immediately blows out of a recessed vent.
She looks from the fireplace to the couch and hesitates in the middle of the room. That hesitation, that fear—that rips me apart inside. I want to reach out and smooth the wrinkle in her forehead. I want to rip the wedding dress off of her and wash away every trace of what Mikhail and Alexander did to her.
But this shit is a fragile situation. What she did, what she had done to her… Pushing her too far now might ruin what’s left of her spirit.
So as much as it agonizes me, I need to keep my distance.
For now.
“There’s a guest room if you want it,” I rasp. My heart throbs uncomfortably in my chest. “I’ll show you.”
I lead her down the hallway. When we pass the master, I duck in and grab her a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then keep going to the next bedroom over. It’s only ten steps away from mine, but it might as well be a mile. A light year. I don’t know how I’m supposed to sleep with her so fucking close, yet so impossibly far away.
When I let myself imagine saving Cora, it went so differently. We reunited like we did in the bathroom at the restaurant. In a tangle of lips and limbs, clawing at each other to get closer.
But this Cora looks like a ghost in front of me. Her eyes are vacant and her skin is pale. She looks like she’s barely staying on her feet.
She tiptoes into the room, her head swiveling from side to side as she takes in every corner. She’s scanning for threats.
“You’re safe in here.”
She jumps at the sound of my voice and then flushes. “I know.”
I’m not sure she does.
“I’ll find something to eat while you change,” I say, backing towards the door. “You can sleep if you want or come and join me. It’s up to you.”
She chews on her lower lip and nods. “Thanks.”
I close the door and linger there, my hand resting against the wood. I’m going to eviscerate Alexander and Mikhail and the entire Sokolov family for what they did to Cora.
Sighing, I put the violent thought aside and start to walk toward the kitchen. I’m halfway there when I hear a yelp. I don’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second—I just spin around and charge right back into Cora’s room, ready to wreak havoc on whichevermudakwas stupid enough to follow us here and—
