All her hope. Again.
“What if… What if something happens?”
“Should you have an emergency, you can of course still contact me, but I cannot continue to live my life if I am continually popping in to keep you going every few weeks. I have work, Evelyne. A life.”
“Other women?” she demanded, and didn’t care if she sounded a bit like a harpy. She wanted to harp.
He gave her a sharp, disapproving look.Finally. “There are notother women. There are women. Because the wordothersuggests there is a woman in my life. And there is not. You are like…a ward. At best.”
“At best.” She laughed, bitterly she knew.There are women. Oh, she wanted tohurthim. She shook with rage, and she was self-aware enough to know underneath the rage was fear, but she was so tired of being afraid.
“All the boxes and bags are labeled. It should be everything you need. You have a driver’s license, a passport, credit cards. Everything you could possibly need to be Lina Marino.”
She tried so hard to fight back the tears, to focus on the anger, but this was so gutting. She had survived these past three months on his visits. And maybe she had been in some denial. Denial that this would be forever.
Now he was describing a forever in which she couldn’t even beherself. She had to pretend to be some Italian billionaire’s wife. Not eventhisItalian billionaire’s wife.
She was free from abuse, but notfree. She was utterly alone, and she could not even be herself. When he was here was the only time she could even begin to experience whatherselfmeant. How would she discover who she really was now?
The first tear fell, and she quickly dashed it away with the back of her hand. “Is this really necessary?” she croaked out. “Couldn’t you have just made me promise not to kiss you?”
He got very stiff then. “This isn’t about that.”
Fury leaped at that, twining in with the sadness, disappointment and fear. She looked up at him now, eyes narrowed. She settled on the fury, held on to it, nurtured it. She wantedthatabove tears. She wanted tohurthim as he was hurting her.
Fair? No. But none of this wasfair. And if it wasn’t, if nothing could be, if even in escape she could not have any sort of freedom, then why be fair? Or rational? Or anything other thanfurious?
“No, Gabriel, you do not get to pretend. You are punishing me because I had theaudacityto suggest we might enjoy each other.”
“It is not punishment,” he returned flatly. But she saw something in his eyes. A kind of softening. Which did not make her feel better. It somehow made her madder. That he could be soft, that he could beinterested, that he could be so many things when it came to her and want to cut them all off.
“I am notpunishingyou, Evelyne,” he said with that infuriating gentleness.
“You are. You’re leaving mealone. Forever.”
Gabriel thought he could fight anything. He’dpreparedto fight anything, even a bit of hysteria, but the tear that tracked down her cheek sorely tested that preparedness. Because it wasn’t hysteria. There was a bone-deep sadness in her, even underneath this new flash of temper.
She had been cut off from all she knew, and he was her only anchor. But he could not safely continue to be this for her. She might be upset, but he was doing her a favor.
If she got under the surface any deeper than she already was, he would only make her miserable. He would only be shades of her father. Even if he never laid a hand onher, he would not be the man she thought.
He could not be the man she needed. Calm, rational, in control.
“If you wear the disguise, you can meet people. Make friends. Make a life here.” He tried to keep his voice from softening. “It will not be so bad.”
“But it will all be a lie.” She dashed another tear off her cheek, but another spilled over and she left it there to trail down the soft gold of her skin. “No one will really know me. I cannot ever beme.”
He could not let that truth change his course. “It was never permanent, Evelyne. Me visiting you. You must make your own life.”
She shook her head. “Of course. What I want has never mattered. Why would I think that would start now simply because you saved me from marrying the general? It’s all the same to the likes of you.”
“The likes ofme?” He thought of everything he’d done for her—not just Alex, but forher. Frustration wound deep with a nagging guilt that irritated him. He had nothing to be guilty for. Not when it came toher. He was doing thisforher, so he wouldnotbe thelikes ofanyone who’d hurt her. “I would suggest you don’t lump me in with yourlikes of, if they include your father and the general.”
“Why not? Rich, powerful men who see women as nothing but pawns. Move me about the country. Leave me alone. Cut me off from everything I know—for my own good. Yes, I know. And I am grateful. But when do I get to choose for once? I didn’t even choose this damn house.”
“Leave it then. Find a new one. Do something else, if you want to be a child throwing a tantrum.”
Her eyes widened then, got a little wild. He surveyed her warily.
