Chapter 5

"What are you thinking about?"

His voice came in low and warm. I turned. He was walking over with a bowl of soup, steam curling off it.

"Nothing."

"Lucian. I'm dirty. I don't deserve how good you are to me."

I dropped my eyes. My voice cracked.

He crouched in front of me. Eye level.

"Claire. You're not dirty."

"You're a victim. None of what they did to you was ever your fault."

"The ones at fault are the men who hurt you. And the people who poured their filth on you without knowing the first thing."

The tears came without warning.

"But my heart—I think it's dead—"

He was quiet a beat. Then he brushed the tears from my cheek.

"Fine."

"If your heart's dead, I'll warm it back, slow. I don't need you to love me tomorrow. I just need you to let me stay."

"For a long time I believed I couldn't love anyone. That I was broken that way."

"Until I met you."

"I love who you are. The rest doesn't matter to me."

He took my hand.

"Rest. Heal. The debts that need to be collected—I'll handle them."

I looked at him, at how quietly serious he was, and my vision blurred.

The sunlight lay warm across my shoulders.

So there was salvation in this world after all.

But I wasn't ready to trust anyone yet.

Adrian's world came apart the moment he couldn't find Claire.

He used every contact and every resource the Blackwoods had. He turned the city inside out.

He got nothing. Not a hair.

Like she'd evaporated.

Worse—the sea of photos and videos that had circulated online vanished overnight.

He sent people after the source. Every trail had been cut clean.

Whoever had done it had been ruthless, and thorough, and untraceable.

He went after the men who'd hurt her three years ago. Half were missing. The other half were already behind bars.

Charges airtight. Evidence clean. No appeal.

If he hadn't covered his own tracks from the start, he'd have been in a cell with them.

A cold started in his legs and worked up.

Someone was protecting Claire.

Someone bigger than he'd thought possible.

While the pressure was choking him, the police came to the door.

"Mr. Blackwood. Vivienne Harrington has been arrested. Conspiracy to commit aggravated assault. We need your cooperation."

The room blanked out around him.

He watched Vivienne being walked out in handcuffs, shouting his name, sobbing.

Reflexively he started to defend her.

"Vivienne—she's not—"

"Do you have proof—"

The officer looked at him without warmth and handed him a folder.

"Recordings, wire transfers, eyewitnesses. All of it."

Adrian took the folder with trembling hands. Each page drained more color from his face.

Every inhumane thing Claire had suffered in that cellar—Vivienne had arranged personally.

And he—the man who'd sworn to protect Claire forever—had delivered her to the slaughter and helped his enemy twist the knife again and again.

He stumbled back a step. The pain caught up all at once and swallowed him.

He was the biggest fool in this whole thing.

He staggered outside. Started laughing.

The laughter broke into tears.

He went insane, slowly.

He started looking for Claire day and night.

He went to every place they'd ever been.

Her favorite patisserie in Mayfair. He ordered the entire case. Sat at her window seat. He waited from open to close. She didn't come.

The street she used to walk down holding his arm. He walked it over and over, whispering her name.

"Claire... Claire... come home... please..."

He asked strangers on the street like a lunatic.

"Have you seen her? She's beautiful. Her name is Claire..."

Some looked at him with pity. Some walked away.

He didn't care.

He just needed to find her.

He needed to atone.

He needed to pay back every debt a thousand times over.

Even if she'd never forgive him.

Adrian hired the best lawyers money could hire to make sure Vivienne paid for what she did.

Then on sentencing day Vivienne clutched her stomach and screamed:

"I'm pregnant! You can't lock me up!"

The snow outside came down harder. It smothered the city white.

The police called me while I was at the window, Lucian opposite me with the tea kettle.

"Miss Harrington. Vivienne Harrington has claimed pregnancy. Under the circumstances we can't detain her right now."

My grip tightened on the phone.

"Understood."

Lucian slid a roasted chestnut onto my plate.

"She's buying time. That's all. She'll pay eventually."

I took a sip of tea.

Then the gate buzzer went off like someone was pressing it through the wall.

The staff opened the door. Adrian half-stumbled in, covered in snow.

His hair was wet with it. Snow on his shoulders. He looked wrecked.

His eyes were red. He'd clearly not slept.

Lucian hadn't hidden my tracks. I wasn't surprised Adrian had found me.

The second he saw me, something lit up in his face. He started toward me, uneven.

"Claire!"

Two of Lucian's men stopped him before he reached me.

Lucian stood up, unhurried, and placed himself between us. His voice was ice.

"Mr. Blackwood. Have some dignity. You don't belong in this house."

"Lucian—move—"

Adrian's voice was raw.

"I need to talk to her!"

I looked up at him. Calm as a frozen lake.

This was the man I'd once tried to pour my whole heart into.

He'd built my hell himself, then dressed up like an angel and pulled me out, then pushed me right back in.

Every piece of my suffering had his fingerprints on it.

He was worse than Vivienne.

Looking at him now, pathetic and destroyed, I just felt tired.