She slicked the straight fall of her black hair back from her face with shaky hands.
“You okay in there?” Smith’s voice called through the door.
She shut her eyes and dropped her head, fighting back tears.
“Yes,” she replied. “I’ll be right out.”
She gave herself one last look in her mirror. The flush had faded. She was now deathly pale, which made the dark shadows beneath her eyes even more pronounced.
Wonderful.
She’d gone from bargain-basement Lara Croft to low-budget Morticia Addams.
Well, there was no helping that.
She straightened her shoulders and opened the door.
He was back in the kitchen, the place still smoky, but he’d opened all the windows and doors to air it out.
“Hey,” he said as she limped to the sofa and sat down. He seemed to be avoiding looking at her, which suited her just fine.
She was drained and devastated after her revelation in the bathroom and her appetite completely lost. She just wanted to get some sleep and get out of here in the morning.
“Will the fire department come?” she asked, not particularly interested. She listlessly plucked at the fringe of the lap blanket draped across the arm of the couch.
“No. I called and explained the situation.”
“Right.”
“I’m gonna make some sandwiches and?—”
“I’m not hungry. Please don’t bother making one for me.” She hadn’t put the boot back on and lifted her legs onto the sofa.
She sensed him looking at her. The first time his eyes hadtouched her since she’d returned from the bathroom. She didn’t turn her head to meet his gaze and instead dropped it on the sofa arm.
“Are you okay?” The question was tentative.
“Not really,” she admitted, closing her eyes. “But I will be.”
She curled on her side and drew her knees up to her chest, tucking her hands between her thighs.
She opened her eyes to find him staring at her with a concerned frown.
“That was a mistake, right?” she whispered. “What happened before?”
She saw his throat move as he swallowed and he nodded.
“I think so.” His voice was equally quiet.
“It felt so good,” she confessed. “But just now, in the bathroom, I realized that it wasn’t. It was like you said. No passion. Cold. You wanted me. But not really. Not in any meaningful way.”
“Kenna.” The two syllables were coated with sadness, defeat, and censure. Even her name had been reduced to nothing but a rebuke and it shredded the last remnants of her heart.
“I’m sorry I did this to us.” Her eyes drifted shut again as the last forty-eight hours began to take their toll. She was so exhausted. And the soporific effects of the painkillers she was taking didn’t help.
She sighed deeply as her body and mind shut down—a trauma response to the immense emotional, psychological, and even physical, damage of the last few days—and she fell asleep.
Chapter
