Page 133 of Forbidden Fate

“You didn’t know that when you left him unconscious after drugging him?”

“I calculated⁠—”

“If you mention math to me one more time, I swear to God, Cruz.” I bury my face in my hands.

“But he’s okay,” Cruz says, and the desperation in his voice makes me furious all over again. “He woke up, didn’t he?”

I stare at him.

“Didn’t he?”

I wipe a tear off my cheek. “He’s still in the hospital, as far as I know. I haven’t been able to check because in case you missed it, I was abducted and taken to Colombia.”

His face twists with pain.

But pain isn’t enough.

Not this time.

“I’m grateful to you,” I say. “Grateful that you got me out, even though you’re the reason I was in that dirty place. I owe you my fucking life. But you almost took my brother’s.”

How the hell am I supposed to balance that? How can I find rationale for my feelings for this man when his actions nearly killed my brother? Put my family—when we were already dealing with all my father’s bullshit—through so much turmoil?

“I’ll always be grateful,” I continue, speaking slowly. “But I don’t see a future for us.”

Cruz goes still.

“I can’t,” I say. “I can’t in good conscience use my family’s money to help a man whose actions could have easily killed my own flesh and blood.”

He says nothing.

I almost wish he would argue.

“I understand,” he says.

Damn him.

I don’t want him to understand.

I want him to make this easier. I want him to say something cruel so I can slam the door on whatever stupid thing was growing between us and never look back.

But Cruz just stands there, bloody and devastated, and lets me choose.

I step closer before I can stop myself.

“Robin.”

“Don’t.” I rise onto my toes and kiss him. Just a soft touching of our lips, but for a second, the basement around us disappears.

Everything disappears.

The blood.

The panic.

The dead woman upstairs.

The brother in the hospital.