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Turning swiftly on her heels, she falls back into the door. Tear-glazed eyes flit to mine in the mirror. “I can’t.”
“You can’t.”
“I can’t leave. I don’t want to leave, but I don’t want to be here either. This place…I…”
“Okay.” I breathe out a sigh of relief as I push to my feet. “Where do you want to be?”
Eve shrugs as though she’s lost all sense of herself. It bothers me that her encounter with the Gladstones has caused her this much distress. Crouching in front of her, I grasp her hand and pull her onto her knees so that we’re closer.
“How do you know them?” I could’ve asked the question during our meeting, but it would overstep the boundary into something personal. Making business personal is never a wise thing. “How does Casper Gladstone know you?”
The tears glazing her eyes swell until they have no choice but to rain down her pretty face when she sucks in a trembling breath.
“Did he hurt you?”
“He lied to me. Casper promised he’d always bring Joe home, but—” She shakes her head with a long, body-wrenching sob. “He lied.”
“I see.”
“No. No, you don’t, because men like you and Casper Gladstone always come back. There’s always someone there to take the bullet for you.”
“Look at me and listen carefully,” I tell her, combing her hair from her face and catching the tears dangling on her lashes so that she can see me clearly. “In war, every man is the same. Bloodlines and titles don’t matter when you’re staring death in the face and he’s waiting for you to put one foot wrong or to look in the wrong direction at the wrong time.”
“Then why did you come back? Why did Casper come home unscathed? Meanwhile, my brother is gone, and my dad…”
“Andrew is the reason I made it back. Our squadron was on a ghost mission to take out a war criminal with an American elite team.” Eve’s eyes widen as I stand and pull her up with me.
I know I shouldn’t tell her any of this, but the mission is done.
“When we raided his compound in the middle of the desert, he was fucking one of his wives. I took the open shot on the bastard without seeing her clearly. Turns out she was wearing a suicide vest, and the instant I put a bullet in his brain, she detonated the fucking thing.”
“You’re here,” she whispers, threading her fingers through mine. “You came back.”
“Sheer luck in one part and in another because Andrew pulled me out. At that moment, it didn’t matter that I was the son of a duke or that my mother is a princess. When shit hits the fan, we’re all the same. Me, Casper, your brother, Andrew…we’re just people looking out for each other while we take the enemy out.”
“I hate it. I hate being on my own and that George is never going to know how great Joe was before he went to war. Every time he came back, there was more of him missing. The last time he came back, he had awful night terrors.” She pauses with a pitying look on her face that sets me on edge.
I know all about the nightmares. There are times I wake up and I can still hear the bullets whistling past me or the screams of women and children that were caught in the crossfire. It’s all so vivid that it doesn’t matter how much I try to bring myself back to the present; I’m stuck there, reliving every fucking second like it’s a penance for my sins.
“One night, he was sleepwalking, and George found him. He’s autistic. Doesn’t like being touched at all.” Eve inhales deeply as she picks at the pearlescent polish on her nails. “Not his mum, not me, no one. And if you touch him, George freaks out. It’s getting worse as he’s becoming older.”
“The boy in the photo looked happy between you and his mum.”
“Jess and I have mastered the art of posing with him. Some creative angles and a selfie stick do the trick.” There’s so much love in her eyes when she speaks of her nephew that I can’t help but smile at the sight, even if she is upset and nervous.
“Don’t pick,” I tell her, grasping both of her hands in mine. “You’ll end up hurting yourself.”
“We don’t want that.” A soft laugh filters past her lips.
“No. No, we don’t.”
“Jess is trying to get him into this private special-needs school, but it’s impossible.”
“How so? Why?”
“She can’t afford to pay the fees, and the council won’t help her because George doesn’t score quite enough points on their charts. They think he can cope in mainstream school, but the teachers don’t know how to cope with him. It’s this vicious circle that never ends.”
I’m not sure what’s worse—seeing her upset over her brother or angry because of her nephew’s situation. In truth, I hate both. And still, I can’t keep myself from asking her to tell me more because I love listening to her talk about the people she loves. She doesn’t realise how her affection beams from deep inside her soul. How it lights her face and sparkles in her eyes. It’s an intoxicating sight, one I cannot get enough of.
