CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Why is she filthy?" I asked Cyrus as we stood in the hallway, a door separating us from the woman sitting in my office looking worn, exhausted, and half starved.

"She came out of her room like that ... mostly."

I raised a brow. "Mostly?"

Cyrus shifted. His pale eyes drifted away. An odd gesture for the man who found nothing uncomfortable.

"I heard her crying," he muttered. "It ... it wasn't normal."

Whether it was the idea of her alone in her room crying or the idea of her crying at all, but my fury was a living, breathing beast in my chest. "Explain."

If it were possible for a two-hundred-pound trained assassin to look simultaneously annoyed, uncomfortable, and regretful, Cyrus managed to pull it off with a single purse of his lips. "There's crying like you had a bad day. This wasn't it. I've only heard it a few times in my life and ... it's haunting. The kind of crying like you've lost everything. Like nothing's ever going to be okay again. That kind." He scrunched his face like the sun were in his eyes before lowering his head to stare hard at his boots. "I don't know what her story is, Thoran, but she's broken. I'd put her on a train to wherever she wants to go and never look back."

I considered those words.

I let them work through my system as the cautions of a man I respected deeply before giving my answer, "We're all broken, Cy. You. Me. Every fucking person in this place. I don't know what her story is either, but we don't banish people for being broken."

Cyrus shrugged and exhaled. "Do you need me?"

I shook my head.

With a bob of his head, the other man stalked away, and I let him go. I let him go do whatever it was he needed to do and turned to the door.

I had nothing else on my plate for the day. I could have taken a nap. Gone for a walk. Could have handled a million other things that never seemed to stop. Instead, I found myself outside my own office because the skittish creature on the other side was a liar.

She was hungry.

I was partially surprised she hadn't dove face first into the food the minute she saw the tray. It was on her face. The ravenous hunger of someone who hadn't eaten in days.

She probably hadn't, I mused, taking in the thin wisp of her figure. A good wind could have taken her out, yet she looked me in the eye and lied, and I knew she wouldn't touch that plate if I was there. It was unclear if she was trained that way or because she was shy, but I knew what I had to do.

I leaned into the wall next to my office doors and waited.

I pulled out my phone and answered a few emails and sent a text to Lake, the cleaning crew I hadn't bothered hiring in a year. Since Penelope. Five brides down, keeping a cursed pile of garbage clean seemed like a useless endeavor. It was just me. I didn't have company and evidently, a wife or children. What difference did it make if the place was dusted? I cleaned my own room. Cooke kept the kitchen immaculate. Oliver was in charge of his own quarters and the men had their own space to do with what they wanted. The rest of the house was simply just there.

But the dust on my new guest's clothes, the stains on her feet wouldn't do. I wouldn't allow her to breathe years of neglect into her lungs. It didn't matter that she may not be there for long.

I pried the doors open a crack after several minutes to peek inside when it was still too quiet to find her finishing the last of the sandwich as if someone might try to steal it.

But I waited until she'd taken her last bite, and her plate was empty. I gave her a few extra minutes to relax the tensions in her shoulders and let the food settle.

But she did none of those things.

She picked up her tea and rose. Curiosity had me pulling back to watch as she walked to the window behind my desk and simply stood there, staring through years of unwashed glass at the wild tangle of forest and swamp.

There was no ethereal light gliding over her alabaster skin or weaving through the heavy cap of hair falling down her back. The overgrown hedges outside the window kept all daylight mostly out. But I would have given my last dollar to have that calm stillness on her face painted.

Fuck, she was beautiful.

It was infuriating because Elena had been beautiful. Same with Penelope, Danika, Constance, and Anne. They had all been beautiful. Yet none of them had driven me crazy with the bone deep desire to touch them. None had made me want to protect them from all the evils of the world.

None had made my chest tight.

One look at her and I was a sinking ship of indecision and chaos. She baffled me and infuriated me. I wanted her submission and her fire.

Maybe I was losing my mind.

Maybe all the mold in the walls were finally doing me in because I hadn't felt a fraction of this turmoil with any of the others and I had no idea what to make of that, except I was terrified.

Terrified of losing her as horrifically and violently as the others.

Terrified of damning her soul to be trapped in that house.

Terrified that if I let her in, let her stay, and I let myself believe things would be different that I would never recover if I was wrong.

Marrying her wasn't a problem. I could have the man with the cloth at the house within the hour. It was everything afterwards that made my stomach knot.

So, what then?I asked myself. What other options do you have?

Listen to Cyrus and Oliver, and put her on the first bus out of my life?

Ignore the warnings and keep her ... and what?

If not marry her, what then?

Would it matter? Would the house recognize an innocent soul not linked to the Lacroix name? Would it care?

A muffled squeaking sound had me blinking out of my thoughts. I watched her rub a finger against the glass, leaving a smear in her attempts. Her lips turned down in disappointment and her arm not holding her mug lowered down to cradle the ceramic between both palms again.

Her and windows.

I didn't understand her fascination with them. I'd gone down the west wing, followed her tiny footprints in filth that hadn't been disturbed in years all the way to the top of the garden steps. I could see the frantic streaks, the spaced-out shapes of her running back at full speed. But it was the neat little side-by-side prints stopping at each window that had both broken my heart and amused me. Part of me wondered if she would tell me if I asked.

I decided against it almost immediately. I was already far too invested in a dead-end situation. Everything in my life felt tremulous and teetering on the edge since her arrival. Maybe Oliver was right. Maybe letting her go was the best option, but if Vance was right and she was a spy...

I blew out a breath and raked five fingers back through my hair.

Christ, why was this so fucking hard?

Accepting I had been gone long enough, I crept to the end of the hall and stomped back to the office, making all the noise in the world until I reached the door. I wasn't surprised to find her in her seat, small hands folded neatly in her lap. Her mug sat on the tray next to her empty plate.

I pretended not to notice.

I kept my face blank as I moved to my chair and sat.

She looked better. Drawn still, but less like she was going to faint. There was a pinch of color in her cheeks at least and a light in her eyes.

I looked away.

"Are you a spy, Blue?" I fixed my gaze back on her, assessing every flicker of thought on her face.

"No," she murmured without batting an eye.

"Did someone send you?"

Her head was shaking even before I finished. "I promise no one did."

I sat back. "Are you running from someone?"

Her lashes dropped and her lip curled up between her teeth.

I exhaled slowly. "You're in a right mess, aren't ya, sweetheart."

She peered up at me, captured lip begging me to free it of the abuse. "I'm sorry."

My eyebrow lifted at the quiet apology. "What for?"

She looked away again. "For bringing you into my mess, but if you let me go, I promise I won't tell anyone about you. I promise. Please."

The please was followed by a flick of her eyes back up at me.

Vance would call me a soft fool, but I believed her. You didn't get as far as I had in the type of work I did without learning to read people. She wasn't lying, but I still couldn't bring myself to let her go. Not yet.

"No."

Her attention shifted to the window just above my head. It lingered there while she contemplated her response, and I watched her. Studied the quiet little spasms of her bunched fists cutting new knicks in her palm. Watched the anxious nibbling of her teeth sawing into her lip. I was so in tune to her every heartbeat that I didn't miss the barely intelligible tremor in her voice when she spoke.

"What are you going to do with me?"

I almost laughed. The sound was brittle and sharp teetering on the tip of my tongue, but the sight of her tears stopped me. They clung so dangerously close to the edge, turning her eyes luminous in the light of the late afternoon.

My jaw clenched.

"Would you believe that I have no fucking idea, love?" I told her honestly. "Keep you, I suppose."

"Are you going to hurt me?"

Never, I wanted to tell her, but I hadn't lied to her this far.

"Yes."

Because that was exactly what would happen if I kept her there and it would be my fault.

Neither of us seemed to have much to say after that. There was probably a lot more we should have said, but we settled on a reluctant sort of silence that wasn't exactly comfortable so much as unavoidable.

She watched me pull my paperwork out and begin the process of looking over negotiation contracts for a shipping warehouse I was looking into buying and a fleet of laundry mats I was looking to sell off. The latter mostly to avoid the heat it was getting the last several months from the cops. They wouldn't find anything. My paperwork was impeccable, but why toy with fate? I had my eye on a couple of gambling halls, anyway. It would make moving money ten times faster.

The chair across from me squeaked and I glanced up at the woman trying not to shift. I'd thought she would get up and move, but she remained in her place, quiet and watchful.

"You don't have to stay there, love," I told her.

"What would you like me to do?"

I set my pen down. "What would you like to do?"

Eyes that had become an obsession of mine lifted with a curtain of uncertainty and I truly wondered about her. It made me all the more ravenous to find the person who made her this way.

Who hurt her.

"Do you like books?"

The apprehension dulled around the edges. It still held the outline of suspicion, but less.

"I love books," she murmured.

I scratched the five o'clock shadow darkening my cheek just over one of the thicker scars. The faint rustling sound filled the room.

"You're welcome to read anything you like in here."

She tried. I would give her that much. She did her best to conceal the thousand watts burst of light that seemed to radiate from her eyes. From the lip she caught brutally between her teeth to stop curving.

"Really?"

Goddamn it.

Fuck me.

What was I doing?

"Yeah," I heard my idiot mouth say.

As if I wasn't already in hell, she beamed with all her teeth. And royally fucked didn't even come close to what I was.

Without a word, she rose and padded with the steps of someone accustomed to being invisible. The tiptoe of a dancer or a thief. She walked with such silence that even her clothes made no sound. Not a rustle.

I pulled in a deep breath and watched her for several moments while she lost herself in the spines of thousands of volumes collected over decades. Most of them, I was certain, weren't even in print anymore and probably worth more than a small country. But she ran a slender finger over ancient covers. Dirty feet arched as she reached for higher shelves. The hem of my top...

I bit my lip as it rode dangerously high up the curve of a perfect fucking ass. How easy it would have been to step up behind her, take her hips and fuck her right there against the books.

She reached higher, one small hand pulling down the back of the sweater as it threatened to expose her. It didn't do much good, but she tried. I smothered my grin behind two fingers as I watched her struggle.

No. I didn't feel bad at all about not telling her there was a stool four feet from where she stood.

She took her findings to the sofa and perched in the corner. I hadn't expected her to stay in the office, but I didn't stop her. I let her fall into her book while I finished my work.

At lunch, I texted Cooke to bring her lunch. It was the only time her head came up, her expression adorably confused, like she'd forgotten where she was. Her gaze landed on the plate of soup and salad, and a glass of iced tea set in the glass and iron coffee table in front of her.

She thanked Cooke but didn't touch the offerings for a long moment. I watched her study the assortment with a deep expression of contemplation. Then, to my surprise, she gingerly cradled the soup bowl and the spoon between her palms and rose.

Both were placed on my desk.

"Don't like soup?" I asked, leaning back. My ass cheeks sore from sitting for hours.

"You haven't eaten," she said, a sweet, pink flush in her cheeks. "He didn't bring you anything."

He hadn't because I didn't normally eat lunch. Cooke knew that.

But I stared at the offering, then the woman unable to meet my eye. The thoughtfulness of the simple gesture kept me from saying as much, nor could I bring myself to refuse her.

Careful not to spook her, I pushed my chair back. I took the bowl and spoon and took them back to where her book lay open. I returned both to the tray and replaced them with the salad and a fork.

"Eat your soup, love," I told her, returning to my desk with the salad.

She fell asleep with the book tucked against her chest like a teddy bear. I considered waking her, but pulled the Afghan off the sofa instead and draped it over her. I started to straighten when her scent hit me square in the chest. A subtle hint of pine ... and me. It shouldn't have but the impact of me on her skin crashed through me with a vengeance that snatched the air from my lungs. My head swam with it. I had to curl my fingers into fists to keep from touching her. Keep from putting my smell on her myself.

I had to take a step back, turning my thoughts to the how when I remembered leaving a bottle of shampoo in her room after my shower needed repairing a few months back. It must have slipped my mind it was in there.

Cooke brought supper and I told him to put her plate away. I ate mine at the desk while watching her. Even in sleep, she curled into herself like she always had to keep her guard up. Her hands were bunched fists next to her slightly parted lips.

I considered leaving her there overnight, but the office was always too cold at night, and I didn't want her waking up in a strange place.

When I was done, I went to her and gathered her up, blanket and all, and carried her up to her room. I laid her on the bed. I washed her feet carefully without waking her before tucking her in.

I brushed a curl off her cheek. Let my fingers linger on her soft skin. "You're going to be the death of me. I know it."