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Eva gives me a sad smile. “I’m sorry you lost your father.”
“And I’m sorry we were dicks to you. We shouldn’t have taken our bullshit out on you.”
Eva stares down at the blanket for a long moment. “I need to tell you something,’ she says. “I didn’t just run away because of you. I ran away because… because I’m pregnant.”
I look up at her and give her a gentle half-smile. “I know,” I admit. “We overheard you telling Fitz. But don’t worry, we aren’t mad or anything. It’s fine.”
Eva frowns, then takes another bite of her soup. There’s something in her face that seems almost troubled by the revelation that we already know, but I can’t put my finger on it.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s fine. I’m just surprised you already knew.”
The silence hangs heavily between us before she goes back to eating.
13
EVANGELINE
The fact that they know already is weighing heavily on my chest. How much do they know, though? Is that why Ryder is being so nice to me right now? Is he just making sure I’m safe so that his baby is protected?
I’m starting to feel better, but my body still aches and I have a cough that won’t go away yet. I’m forced to play nice while I try to assess just how much Ryder knows.
Does he realize that I’m the one they took upstairs that night in the club? Has he put two and two together now, that the timing lines up with our rendezvous?
Despite my anxiety, Ryder never brings up the pregnancy again, even when I expect him to.
“Are you feeling any better today?” he asks, coming in to check on me after a long nap. I woke up with a headache that morning.
“Much better,” I tell him. “I’m nearly ready to be up and working again,” I admit. “But I was just thinking about how you told me about your dad and how you were raised.” I’d had a dream about my own father, something unsettling that ended with me nearly in tears as I avoid being hit by a thrown bottle.
“Sorry I unloaded on you like that,” Ryder apologizes. I wave a hand.
“Don’t be. I had a similar upbringing. My dad didn’t raise me to run a crime family, but he definitely raised me with strict, impossible standards. But that was because he was an alcoholic and so he’d get drunk and contradict himself on a daily basis about what I was expected to do.”
Ryder’s eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yeah. My mom died when I was young, and he never got over it. So, he started drinking to numb the pain, and he took out his frustrations on me.”
“Shit, that sucks,” Ryder says, voice gentle. “Did he hurt you?”
“A little, but he was mostly just cruel with his words and demanding.”
“Abuse doesn’t need to be physical to stay with you,” Ryder said, a faraway look in his eyes. “Is that why you took the job here?”
“Yeah, I needed to get away. Now that I’m an adult, my dad has no say in my life anymore, so I took the first job that got me the hell out of there. I love him, and I know it was tough to lose Mom, but he let his demons carry him away from the person he used to be. I couldn’t be around him any longer.”
“You’re pretty kind for someone who grew up with a shit father,” Ryder remarks. “Most people wouldn’t be so understanding.”
“I think there’s good in everyone,” I tell him. “You have to be willing to look, though, and see past the façade they present to the world.”
Ryder frowns at this. “Is that why you stayed here so long even after we were cruel to you?”
I bite my lip, trying to figure out how to explain things to him without bringing up the baby. “Yeah, kind of. I thought maybe if I just worked hard enough, I could impress you enough to make you stop hating me.”
“Our father taught us a few lessons on how to treat women and household staff that I’m realizing now we need to unlearn,” Ryder admits. “I don’t think there’s much you could have done to make us stop acting like assholes.”
“Sometimes, it was nice,” I say softly. At Ryder’s incredulous expression, I clarify. “I don’t mean being tormented was nice. But when you guys would give me a list of chores to do and I had to fulfill them quickly, I started to feel relief. I didn’t have to think. I didn’t have to figure anything out. I could just do whatever you asked and turn off my brain.”
