“But it was you who opened my eyes, Anderson. It was you who found my heart.”
She pushed at me, rolling me over, and came over me, straddling my chest as she bent and pressed her mouth to mine. Her little tongue slipped between my lips and she adored me in that single kiss.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I know you can’t say it back, and that’s okay. But you need to learn to trust me, Anderson. I’m stronger than you think. I’d protect you with my life.”
Her words tapped at my conscience, telling me I should have questioned her statement more. But when her mouth slid down my body and her lips and tongue teased the head of my cock, all thoughts left me.
It wasn’t until the following week, the night before my fight with Ivan, that her words made perfect sense to me – and I discovered just how much Kloe Grant did love me.
Red could sense the sadness in me, the heaviness of my heart. The wind whipped across the park, the exposed area providing no shelter from its beating on my face. I needed the air. It had felt like my lungs were clogging up in the house.
Kloe and Robbie had been gone a while and I was growing nervous. I’d sent Kloe to pick up some of her things. She had questioned why I wanted her to stay at mine, but after her father had come back into her life it had been easy to give her an explanation as to why I needed her to stay. In reality, it was because she would need the comfort of my home, and Red, when she learned of my fate.
They’d left over three hours ago, and although I knew she would be safe with Robbie, I couldn’t help the twist of anxiety that grew deeper in my chest.
Over the previous week she had healed more and more. Her beautiful smile had returned and she was once again at ease with herself. However, I knew she still hid something from me. I’d catch her looking at me with sad eyes, and she frequently told me that she loved me, as though she needed me to feel every inch of her affection in case I never felt it again. If I didn’t trust Robbie with my life I’d have sworn he had told her, so it couldn’t be the fight that was troubling her.
I couldn’t tell her about my deal with Ivan; it would have broken her. I knew she’d feel guilty, that it was her fault I’d traded my life for hers. But the life of my child, and Kloe, meant more to me than my next breath. If I was left behind without them then my life was over anyway.
I wasn’t nervous about death, far from it, but I was sad that now everything in my life was coming together, it had to end.
Robbie had grown angry again last night. His suggestion of taking Kloe and leaving was ludicrous. Deals were deals; they would never be broken. Kloe was safe because of Ivan. I owed him my life, and I would do it over again if I had to.
Red’s ears whipped up in the air with a sudden strong gust of wind; she looked so comical I couldn’t help but smile. The cold started to penetrate the thickness of my coat and I shivered. “Time to go home, girl.”
I gulped and squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t grieve, and although my heart was sad for Red, I knew she’d be okay with Kloe.
The walk home seemed to take longer than usual, dejection making me slow, but I sighed with relief when I spotted Rob’s car parked up in front of the house.
Rob was nowhere to be seen when I walked in, but Kloe sat at the kitchen table. She was miles away, her fingers clutching a cold cup of tea as she stared into space.
She jumped when I came behind her and dropped a kiss in her hair. The scent of honey and coconut invaded my senses and calmed the storm that had started to swell inside.
“Hey.”
She turned, giving me a soft smile. Her eyes were rimmed with redness. “Have you been crying?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I frowned at her one-word answer and pinched her chin, turning her face to mine. “Don’t lie to me, Kloe. I thought we’d established this a long time ago.”
She nodded and huffed. “Yes, we had established that a while ago. But you lie, so I think I’m entitled to the odd fib or two.”
Her bolshiness made my gut burn. “I’m sorry, what?”
Pushing her chair back, she stood up and turned to face me. Her eyes were narrow and hard. “I trusted you, Anderson. I trusted you with my life, yet you couldn’t return that. You didn’t trust me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She pursed her lips. “Ivan Moritz.”
Every single bone in my body cracked as ice raced through me. My heart jumped in my chest, thudding against my breastbone as if it wanted to make a run for freedom. “Who told you?”
She hesitated, as if to brace herself for my wrath when Robbie’s name slipped from her mouth. It had to be Robbie; no one else knew.