“Just one,” he answers.
I shake my head, grief clouding my vision for a moment. “Did he have a family?” I ask. My hand comes to my stomach.
“Sydney,” Robert says, his head still bent so that he is speaking softly against my hair. “I take care of all the men who work for me. They know the risks. His family will be compensated.”
“As if there is anything that can replace someone we love,” I whisper almost to myself.
But Robert pulls me into a hug. I don’t like it. I don’t like the way his scent fills my senses, the way his arms lock around me, the way he manages to make me feel better when I don’t want to…I don’t want to just go on with my life as if pain and suffering isn’t just writhing all around me all the time.
“And you’re sure now that we are safe here.”
Robert shakes his head. “Of course not, Sydney, we are never safe.” I look up at him but Robert’s focus is on the sea, the horizon line in the distance, frothy with waves. “But that is why we have such good security. So that we can relax.”
“You want to go back to the hotel?”
He looks down at me then, his glasses back in place so I can’t see his eyes. “Where do you want to go?”
“The whole reason I agreed to meet you was so that you’d tell me about why you’re buying up cryptocurrency. You said you’d do so over dinner.” My gaze tracks to the sky. The sun is slipping down the west side of the world and in an hour or so the gauzy pink of sunset will arrive. “So when do we eat?” I turn back to Robert and his jaw ticks once before he reaches to take off his sunglasses.
“I want to eat now.”
Blue taps my hip with his nose and I reach out to touch him, grounding myself in his presence. “So back to the hotel then?” I say, my voice coming out all kinds of weird and high. Shit. I clear my throat and drop my gaze, but before I can try to speak again—in a normal fucking way—Robert has his hand on my chin and he’s tilting it up toward him, forcing me to meet his gaze.
We are standing on the top deck, the sky arching above us, the sun glinting off the ocean and making this tropical paradise sparkle like a freaking postcard. Making Robert look like a freaking…I don’t even know what. With the wind tousling his hair and…
I step back but Robert’s arm tightens around me so that I don’t get away. My jaw tightens and my eyes narrow. “Let me go,” I say, my voice coming out just fine this time. His smile comes fast and wicked. We stare at each other, his hand still on my chin. My arms hang by my sides and my fingers twitch, ready…
He releases me and I step back. “Dinner,” he says. “At the hotel or here…?”
“I want to go back to the hotel,” I say.
“We can dine in our suite,” Robert suggests, as he starts down the stairs.
I follow him. “Our suite?” I ask. “Didn’t you get your own?”
“They were sold out,” Robert says, his back to me. I could push him… He stops and turns to me, as if he can read my mind. I’m more than a head above him because of the angle of the steps and I could kick him easily in the chest. “I tried to get us a room with two beds but,” he shrugs, then moves up a step, coming into my personal space. Our heads are now even with him standing one step below me, still facing in. “I thought, we are married, we could share a room…no?”
“I’m not sleeping with you, I made that clear.”
“It wasn’t so clear when we were in the water before Brock arrived. But we could stay here,” Robert says, waving his arm at the palatial yacht. “There are plenty of suites available.”
“Why does this feel like a trap?” I ask.
“Because you are paranoid,” Robert says. “It’s one of the many charming traits we share.”
I huff a laugh. “How do I know you won’t sail off in the middle of the night, imprisoning me on this boat?”
“Because you’d kill me and force Brock to be your new humble servant.” Robert raises one brow as I laugh again. “And I would never do that to Brock.”
I shake my head. “You’re…”
“Wonderful, I know, we’ve been over this before.” Robert smiles at me as I laugh yet again. “Listen, baby, I’m happy to sleep on the floor at the hotel.”
“One, don’t call me baby. For real. Two, there is a couch; it’s in front of the coffee table which is glass and open to the ocean. Not sure if you noticed that.”
“I notice everything,” Robert says. I roll my eyes. “I would sleep anywhere you asked of me…”
“Don’t start with this again,” I say, trying to push past him, stepping to the side, down onto the same step as him, but Robert doesn’t move and I get that itchy feeling again. The one of being trapped…and not hating it.
“Sydney, when will you believe me?”
I look up at him, our bodies almost even on the step, him taller again. “Never,” I answer honestly. “I’ll never trust you.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, that’s not true. You trust me. With your life. Even with your heart. But you don’t believe me that I trust you…” Is he right? I blink up at him, lost in his words for a long moment. “I will humble myself for you, Sydney. Anything for you.”
He holds my gaze and I can’t swallow. I’m trapped in the moment. Then I’m rising on my toes, pressing my lips to his, and I don’t even know I’m doing it until it’s done. Until his lips are against mine, warm and on their way to being familiar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When raising a puppy, it is important to look for signs of aggression—it almost always comes from fear.
Afraid food will be stolen, toys taken, territory encroached. An aggressive puppy is a scared puppy. And it is the owner’s job to train them, calm their minds, show them that they are the boss and that the puppy has nothing to fear because they can trust in the strength of their human’s leadership.
When I first adopted Blue, he feared children. Who knows what happened in the months before he became mine? Did kids tie cans to his tail, throw rocks at him? I’ll never know. But after he was shot, and I was almost killed. After I changed so dramatically from a normal woman to one hell-bent on revenge. After my heart broke and grief flooded my veins. After all that, Blue believed in me enough not to fear children or anything else.
He became aggressive in a new way—once Merl worked with us, he became attuned to what dangers lurked around us. What we should fear.
