Page 99 of Forbidden Fate
She folds her hands in her lap. “I’m just saying,” she says, “that once I’m safe, I won’t abandon you.”
I look down at the floorboards between us.
When I was a boy, I used to sit in this room while Mamá talked with Señora V after breakfast. I would pretend to read, but mostly I listened. Women’s voices. Their laughter. Their warnings. Their stories about men who promised the world and took more than they gave.
What would Mamá think now? Would she like Robin?
Yes.
She would.
She would like her fire. Her spine. Her refusal to soften just because the world has been hard on her.
She would also tell me to be careful.
Not because Robin is dangerous, but because wanting her is.
“You don’t owe me anything,” I say.
Robin’s expression hardens. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Do the noble thing where you pretend you didn’t risk your life to get me here.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“No.” She leans forward. “You did what you chose to do. There’s a difference.”
I have no answer for that. She’s right. I did choose.
I chose her.
Not Vega. Not fear. Not survival.
Her.
“You should be careful,” I say. “Offering things to men like me.”
“Men like you?”
“Men with pasts.”
She shrugs. “Everyone has a past.”
“Not like mine.”
Her gaze darkens. “You don’t know everything about mine.”
Something in her voice… Robin carries something too. Something older than Adriana’s house. Older than Vega. Something that taught her how to survive.
She was kidnapped in Romania. I know that much.
What I don’t know is what she did to get through it. What she did to make sure she got out alive.
I want to know.
I want to know everything.
