She was bruised and exhausted and fresh off a night that should have broken her, but she sat there with her chin still tipped at that proud angle he’d come to crave.
Rome looked at her beautiful face and knew with bone-deep certainty exactly where she belonged. Not in Chicago. Not on the run. And sure as hell not in the hands of the men hunting her.
She belonged with him.
The truth landed hard, leaving no room to dodge it.
Somewhere between wanting her, protecting her and watching her fight like hell to survive, Rome had done the one thing he never thought he would.
He’d fallen in love with Stina.
* * * * *
“Keep them closed.”
“They’re closed.”
“You peeked.”
“I did not peek.” She hadn’t.
She was walking blind with Rome’s hand warm on her shoulder guiding her through a doorway she couldn’t identify by sound or smell, which was more disorienting than she’d expected. She’d gotten good at navigating this base but she had no clue where they were headed.
“Two more feet. Stop.” His hands settled on her shoulders from behind, positioning her, and she felt him close at her back. “Okay.”
She opened her eyes.
For a moment she just stood there and looked and didn’t say anything because her brain needed a second to process what she was seeing as real.
The pots were first—a full set, hanging from a rack she didn’t remember being there before, copper-bottomed and gleamingand the exact weight and quality she’d spent years coveting from the other side of a price tag that never made sense on her budget. Not the institutional dented things she’d been wrestling with since she got here.
Real pots. The kind herbabahad saved up for over two years and treated like heirlooms.
Below them on the counter sat the knives.
She pressed her hand to her mouth.
Was she actually going to cry over new knives?
She was.
The block was dark wood, the handles glinting the way that good steel did.
She crossed the room without deciding to and pulled one free—a chef’s knife, perfectly balanced, and she turned it once in her hand.
“Rome.” Her voice came out strange. “When did you get these?”
“Ordered them after we were upstairs in the resort. They came yesterday while you slept.”
His voice was even, but she caught the slight waver of emotion. While she slept off her ordeal, he stayed right by her side. When she woke, he was right there with his arms around her, and his scent wrapped around her senses and anchoring her to the knowledge that she was safe.
“You say this like it’s a normal thing, like men order professional grade copper cookware and Japanese steel knife sets for women they’re hiding in covert bases every day of the week.”
He grinned. “The delivery took longer than I wanted. I had O reroute it through three different addresses.”
She set the knife down carefully and turned to look at him.
He was watching her from the doorway with his arms crossed and his shoulder against the frame, trying to look like he hadn’t done something that made her feel important and cherished.
