Page 52 of Exacting Vengeance

Survival instinct to run warred with her desire to explore where this undeniable chemistry would take them.

That churning in her belly worsened, along with the dark storm brewing in her head.

Sooner or later, she’d have to make a decision. This was a dangerous game she was playing, and one she might not win.

If she made the wrong choice and lost, she had everything to lose.

Including her freedom.

Chapter Twenty-One

Sunlight blared through the Explorer’s windshield, forcing Kyle to flip down the visor as he parked in front of Victoria’s building.

She hadn’t said much since they’d left the gym. Even when they’d all grabbed a quick lunch with Jack, Gina, and her friends, she’d been mostly silent. Not even Gina’s attempts to draw her out did any good, and that was saying something.

Provoking her had made him feel like crap, but her body had been frozen with fear, and he’d needed to say something to knock her out of her stupor. He’d known she could do it. She had to see that, too. Afterward, she’d seemed fine. Ecstatic, even. Then something had changed.

He shut off the engine. Across the street, the security man he’d hired hung a right turn, squaring the block. He’d instructed the guy to check the rear of the building periodically to verify the back door remained closed and locked.

“Well,” she said, clasping her hands on her lap. “Would you like to come up for a drink?”

A drink? After the silent treatment she’d doled out for the last two hours? Not that he had a single doubt where he wanted things to go. Since the moment he’d wrapped his arms around her soft body at the gym, every dream he’d had about her for the last decade flamed to life.

He wanted her.

He’d always wanted her, but she’d been hurt terribly. Emotionally and physically. This was her script, and he’d accept however she wanted to write it. “Sure.”

Minutes later, he stood in her living room, taking his first real look at the apartment. The last time he’d been here, there hadn’t been much of a chance.

Sunny yellow walls seemed to glow in the late afternoon sun shining through the windows. A large Persian-style blue-and-red rug covered most of the floor, and an overstuffed blue sofa took up one wall, and two matching armchairs another. The window ledge and a coffee table tucked beneath the ledge were loaded with pots of green, leafy ferns and blooming pink orchids. The only photo in the room was on the hall table, the one of Victoria’s mother.

He leaned against the kitchen doorway and crossed his arms, watching her open and close one cupboard door after another. “Your apartment suits you. Warm, homey.” Very unlike the house she’d lived in with Yuri—cold and barren. He guessed she’d had nothing to do with decorating it. “I’m sorry to hear of your mother’s passing.”

“Thank you,” she said over her shoulder.

Yuri’s file had information on both her parents. Her father had died when she was only two. He’d learned about her mother during one of the regular database queries he’d run on Victoria over the years. For safety reasons, so he’d told himself. To make sure she was okay and hadn’t popped up on the Bratva’s radar. He’d also done it because the stupid part of his brain had wanted to maintain that faint connection with her.

Every query he’d run had been torture. Even if she’d popped on one of his searches, which she never had, unless she’d been in danger, he wouldn’t have done a thing. She deserved a loving husband, a stable one—sans baggage—who could be there for her, plus the 2.3 kids, a dog, and a house with a white picket fence in a safe suburb.

So what the hell was he doing in her place? Could he give her all those things now?

Back then, the decided answer to those questions would have been a resounding no. Had he changed that much, enough to be what she needed? Honestly, he didn’t know. For her sake, he should be walking out the door and speeding down the road, yet he couldn’t make his feet move. More importantly, he didn’t want to.

“You have a green thumb,” he said, totally in the dark about where to take the conversation. Weather and plants seemed safe.

“Thanks.” She threw him a sad smile. “With Mom gone and no children, I guess I needed something to take care of.”

At the mention of children, that sad smile was still there. Not for the first time, he thought she would have made a great mother and maybe still could be.

Thoughts of children he didn’t have and probably never would could still form a knot in his throat.

Next, she opened the refrigerator door, closing that, too. “I really didn’t think this through. I don’t have any beer, wine, or anything else to offer you.” She chewed on her lower lip, as if she hadn’t fully written that script and decided where she wanted this to go. “I only have coffee or tea.”

Inside, his body zinged with anticipation, but he had to allow her to set the pace. “Coffee is fine.”

When she reopened the refrigerator door her knuckles were white. “I’m out of milk.”

“I take it black.” If tea was the only thing she had, he would gladly have drunk it, and he hated tea. To him, tea tasted like dishwater.