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She laughs and shakes her head, gaze flicking to the bedroom door. “I’m too old for you, that it?”
“You’re too not Rose,” I say. Age hasn’t got a thing to do with it. She’s not Rose. No one is. “I’ll be in touch. Let him go. And if he’s harmed…”
She waits.
“Don’t let him be harmed.” I leave it at that, but she gets the point.
She sees herself out, and I think,if there’s so much as a hair on his head out of place, I’ll fucking make her entire family wish they’d never been born.
Chapter8
Rose
Iwait.
Quietly.
Through Niko’s time with my least favorite law enforcement officer, the lovely, untrustworthy—if you ask me—Adelaide whatever her dumb name is; through his calls and texts when she goes; through his handing me a dress and telling me to put it on; through dinner, I wait.
I stay quiet, but fuck, it’s hard.
It hard when I’m bursting with questions, when I want to touch, soothe, rile him, anything for a real Nikolai reaction.
All he’s said is that Rush is in trouble, and now I’m with dark, impossibly suave, charming Nikolai. The deadly one. The one of steel and rock and ice. The one who only touches out of rote.
No one else would notice that. To anyone looking, we’re Rose and Nikolai, and his attention, his fingers smoothing over me, lips whispering on mine, a cheek, my shoulder, palm, says a man with his woman, one he’s devoted to.
To me, it’s like there’s a chasm between us, one I don’t know how to close.
He’s worried, and it eats at him.
I’ve never seen this, his love and fear for his cousin, for Rush, the softer version of Nikolai. Niko loves Rush, and I don’t know what to do except be here.
There’s another selfish thought: if he’s like this with Rush, what does it do to this man when I’m in danger?
I’ve only seen him when he has me safe.
Will this—whatever this is—push him over an edge, give him the strength to destroy our progress and go back to the old Nikolai, the one who’d rid me from his life in some mistaken attempt to keep me safe and sound?
If he does, I’ll make him regret it.
If he does, it won’t work.
So, I laugh and chatter about nothing, look at him like he’s all the stars in the sky.
It’s not until we’re in the car after dinner that he says, “Thank you.”
“I did that for you. Just don’t shut me out.”
His phone pings, and he looks at it. I don’t know where we’re going, but it’s just us. I wait for his reply, but it doesn’t come soon enough.
“If you don’t talk, I’ll shoot you.”
He laughs, closes his eyes, and leans back. “My Rose finally appears.”
“I have a lot of questions.”
Turning his head, he looks at me. “I’m in a tight spot.”
