7

R oman’s truck was parked outside the cabin when I got home. It was already starting to get dark, and the lights were on. Thankfully, so was the heating. I shrugged out of my coat and hung it on a peg by the front door.

I had no idea what I’d be walking into, and I mentally prepared myself for everything and anything. Or so I thought. I was not prepared for the sight of Roman tossing a salad in the kitchen.

“Hey,” he said when I walked in, his gaze lingering a moment.

“Hi.” Relief swept over me as I studied him. There was still some bruising on his face, but the color of his skin was back to normal, tanned and healthy. His eyes had lost that feverish shine.

“Hungry?”

“Starving.” I glanced at the steaks he’d already seasoned and set aside to breathe. “I could have made supper.”

“I got home early.” He reached for a pan and turned to the stove. “And I wasn’t sure how late you’d be.”

He didn’t ask where I’d been. Then again, he’d been gone two days without saying where he’d been.

I rested a hip against the edge of the kitchen table and folded my arms. Roman was home, cooking dinner, looking like his old self. It was almost as if we were back to normal, but of course we weren’t. He wasn’t taking me into his arms or brushing a kiss over my mouth. I wanted to wrap myself around his body and inhale him. I wanted to hug him close and never let go. But I couldn’t do any of that.

At least he seemed mostly recovered. That was the most important thing. “You look a million times better.”

“I am.” The butter in the pan sizzled and he threw the steaks in. “Speaking of which, you know that warden’s meeting I went to? I collapsed and they—”

“You collapsed?” Dread folded around my spine.

“It’s all good.” Roman bent his head my way, his gaze connecting with mine. “I was taken to the clinic on the warden base. That’s where I’ve been the last two days.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Was this what we’d come to? He’d had the opportunity. He’d responded to my messages. “I thought you were cooling your heels in The Smoke, but all this time you’ve been fighting for your life?”

“This is why I didn’t tell you.” His attention returned to the stove. “I wasn’t fighting for my life.”

His dismissive attitude wasn’t helping. My voice pitched. “Because you didn’t want me to overreact?”

“Because I didn’t want you to worry,” he said coolly.

“I am worried.” My fingers dug into my palms. “I should have been worried. You were in hospital.”

“My kidneys were bruised, but it wasn’t life threatening.” He flipped the steaks and slid the pan from the heat. “They hooked me up to IV antibiotics and glucose bags and whatever else they shoved into my blood. I’m a hundred percent now.”

He didn’t get it.

He seriously didn’t.

The food was ready. Roman plated the steaks and grabbed the salad bowl. I brought cutlery and two glasses of water to the table.

“I know you’re mad at me, but I’m your wife,” I said as we took our seats. “I love you. I have a right to worry about you.”

“I’m not mad at you.” He didn’t look at me as he said that. He plied salad onto his plate and picked up his knife and fork.

Roman didn’t lie. Not to me. Not that I was aware of. But he did have a track record of keeping quiet instead of telling me the truth.

We ate in silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay, you’re not mad at me. So what are you?”

He looked at me and chewed.

Tears stung behind my eyes. The cracks in my heart were showing. Was this so much worse than him being mad? Did he hate me? Had he decided he couldn’t ever forgive me?

“Roman.” My voice choked.

“I don’t know, Georga.” He put his cutlery down and rested back in the chair. “What should I be? You tell me.”

“I’ve told you everything.” I’d barely touched my steak, but I wasn’t hungry anymore. I pushed my plate aside and gulped down some water. “No more lies. No more secrets. But I can’t tell you what to feel, Roman.”

“That’s the thing,” he said, his stone-cold gaze pinned on me. “Have you told me everything?”

I stared at him, a sinkhole opening up in the bottom of my stomach. What now? I had told him everything, hadn’t I?

He ran a hand through his hair. “Why did you marry me? Was it because I was a warden?”

“What?”

“You accepted my offer to advance your status in the Sisterhood.” He stated that as fact, but then he added, “Is that what they expected of their members? To accept any offers that would benefit them?”

My mouth went dry.

“You said they were determined to use your marriage. They used you and you used me.” His jaw squared. He was biting down on his back teeth. “You used our marriage, and you weren’t opposed to any of it. That’s what you said.”

“You used our marriage as well,” I said weakly. “You needed to appear to be conforming to Capra society. You only offered for me because you thought Daniel was also offering, and you knew I’d accept him. You didn’t want to marry me, but if you’d walked away, it would’ve hurt your prospects of rising to High Warden.”

His high ambitions weren’t for himself. They were in Amelia’s name, so he could be in a position of power to prevent other young girls from being traded to the Barons and the wilds.

But I’d done what I’d done for the Sisterhood.

Both our causes were just.

“I never betrayed you.” His voice was so damn cold, it sent a chill over my skin. “I never took anything from you. I never used you, and certainly not in any way that could damage you or those you love.”

He was so arrogant and self-righteous and judgmental…and he was right, of course. Maybe that’s what stung the most.

“I didn’t want to marry anyone, Georga, but the moment we exchanged vows, I did honor this marriage. I protected you to the best of my ability. I tried to give you whatever happiness this world would allow. I did not enter this marriage with ruthless intentions.”

I wanted to blurt out that I hadn’t, either. But that wasn’t the whole truth.

“I’ll ask you one last time.” His warning was palpable. This was my final chance. “Why did you accept my offer?”

I’d already lost him.

I felt it in my bones.

I dropped my hands onto my lap beneath the table. I didn’t want him to see my fingers tremble. “I knew you were a young man with bright prospects and a prominent future. My mother assured me of that. I knew a warden’s wife would be a coup for the Sisterhood. I knew they’d take full advantage of our marriage.”

His brow lifted. His mask was firmly in place. He looked bored, as if I had nothing new to tell him.

“But that’s not why I married you,” I said. “I was an emotional mess. Daniel hadn’t offered for me. Jenna was marched out by the guards for refusing to graduate. Then I had to watch Brenda, who was supposed to be my friend, walk down the aisle with Daniel. I wanted to hide in my bedroom and cry my eyes out, but I couldn’t do that.”

Roman’s expression gave nothing away.

I sucked in a deep breath and continued. “I had to accept an offer from some boy I didn’t know, since I’d wasted all our graduation balls on Daniel. I had to graduate, or I’d be sent away like Jenna, to God knows where. I didn’t have a choice.”

Roman scrubbed his jaw.

My gaze dipped. I twined my fingers in my lap. “Then I saw you.”

Dark. Dangerous. And so sinfully beautiful. His chiseled features set in mutiny, that storm raging in the hollows of his jaw, eyes as gray as stone and icy cold.

“You want to know why?” I said. “I chose you out of spite. I was furious, bleeding rage from my pores. I was hurting. I was scared. I felt small and hopeless.”

“Georga.”

My eyes lifted to him. “And there you were, a powerful warden, a man who had all the choices in the world at his fingertips. I didn’t know why you’d offered, but I could see how badly you didn’t want me to accept. You weren’t trying to hide it. And if I had to live the rest of my life in an unwanted marriage, I decided then and there, so could you.”

Roman just looked at me. Filling awkward silences had never been his style.

“And then…” I pushed to my feet, my knees shaky, my heart trembling as badly as my hands. “And then I fell in love with you and I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of it.”

I turned from the table and stumbled blindly in the direction of the bedroom. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

That really was my last confession. I’d bared my soul down to the last rotten ounce. I had nothing left to hide.

I made it as far as the bedroom door. A firm hand clasped my arm and spun me around, up against the wall. He wasn’t gentle. He also wasn’t rough. He plastered one hand to the wall, his body caging me in, and I was looking into his glinting eyes, un-shuttered with raw emotion.

He saw my tears and cursed.

“I’m a cold, arrogant bastard.” His thumb brushed the wetness on my cheek. “I don’t deserve your tears.”

“You wear the mask of a cold, arrogant bastard.” I didn’t know what was happening here, but I had nothing left to lose. “That’s not who you are. Our marriage has always been a ticking bomb, and I tried so hard to not fall in love with you. But every time you showed me a little more of who you are, I fell a little deeper.”

His gaze went soft, washing warmth into my bones. The breaths between us grew hotter and hotter, packed with volatile energy that could go either way. Desire wasn’t love, it didn’t forgive all and it didn’t last forever. Roman was sculptured in some dark, savage beauty that had always called to me.

He was my fallen angel.

He was my sin and he was my salvation.

Now that I’d once had all of him, I could never settle for less. My body might be exploding for his touch, but my heart wanted so much more.

His head bent forward, bringing his mouth an inch closer to mine.

“Don’t,” I whispered, even though my body ached for him. “Not unless you forgive me. Not unless you still love me.”

He pulled back a little to look at me. His smile came on slow and cocky, devastating my resistance. “Georga, you are so damn beautiful, I could spend the rest of our life in bed with you and never be sated. But I could walk away from that, from sex and physical desire, without breaking sweat. What I can’t seem to do, what I’ve never been able to do, is walk away from loving you.”

My heart turned to jelly. So did my legs. I slid down the wall a little and Roman scooped a hand around my waist, pulling me against him.

“I love you.” His words brushed the corner of my mouth with the ghost of a kiss, and then his lips covered mine and he kissed me properly, urgently, stealing my breath and my senses.

We landed up in bed, ravaging each other as if we’d been starved for years instead of a few days. Each touch, each look, each taste, each word… felt like a lifetime of cravings crammed into each heartbeat. My skin was connected to my bones connected to my heart connected to my soul, and all of me was connected to Roman.

Many hours later, I rolled out of Roman’s arms and up onto my elbows, and told him about the rehab center and my volunteer position.

His satisfied smirk turned grim. “I don’t like the idea of you being anywhere near that place.”

“I know, it’s creepy,” I said. “It does feel good, though, to help those women. But that’s not why I took the job. Daniel and the heirs are due to be transferred there. I figured that’s our best shot to stage a breakout.”

“I thought you were going to use the system to save Daniel.”

“I am,” I said. “How do you think I got the job at the rehab center?”

“Georga.” He looked like he wanted to say more, then he sighed. “Have you spoken to Geneva about this again?”

“She’s released the younger boys, but she’s never going to change her mind about Daniel and the older heirs.” If I’d tried to push her harder, it would just have raised her suspicions. “She’s convinced they’re too big of a threat.”

A few beats passed. “Okay, but whatever we decide, we do this together.”

“That’s the plan.”

“I’ve been out of the loop, but tomorrow I’ll see what stance the wardens have taken on the situation.” He pulled me back into the crook of his arm. “Maybe they’re willing to persuade the Sisterhood to release the councilmen and heirs.”

“Would they have that kind of leverage?”

“They have the leverage,” Roman said. “Whether they’re willing to get involved in town politics, that remains to be seen.”

After that, I drifted into my first night of restful, uninterrupted sleep in days.