Ares meant every word, she could see it in his gaze, hear it in his rasping stony voice. And he’d said ‘we.’ Not ‘you’ or even ‘I.’ It was a ‘we,’ as if she wasn’t alone in this. As if they were going to find out together.
Her throat closed up, her anger at him and the relentless way he’d reminded her that she was the one who’d insisted on this marriage, that she hadn’t had to do any of this, that the whole reason she was here and feeling all these big, complicated emotions about him was because of the choices she’d made, had drained away.
She’d shoved that unpleasant truth aside the instant he’d asked her whether she understood Greek. Because she’d understood his curse instinctively and had responded before she’d had a chance to think it through. Then the Greek word for kitten had just been sitting there in her brain, a thread of memory with it. Of kittens in a shop window and pleading with someone to let her stay there to watch them. And then a voice, a boy’s, saying, ‘Okay, but you have to stay right here. I won’t be long.’
Greek. She might be Greek. And Ares was going to help her find out.
She tore her gaze away, her throat tight, a wave of intense emotion flooding through her so tangled she couldn’t puzzle it out. Fear and hope and worry all twisted together, and the hard pinch of grief, and more she couldn’t even begin to name.
Ares stepped forward and took her hands in his large, warm rough ones. ‘Rose?’ he said softly. ‘It will be all right. We’ll find out.’
She looked up at him, the hard knot of emotion pulling tight. ‘What if it’s terrible? What if I...have no one? What if my family is awful and I’m—’
‘It will be all right,’ he repeated, and it sounded like an order, as if whatever he willed, so it would be. ‘We will deal with it when we get to that point, okay?’
Again, ‘we’ will deal with it.
Do you really want him involved with this?
She’d never expected him to help find out who she was. She’d thought she’d have to do it on her own. Except, as it turned out, now she had him. And not only his help, she understood, but his support too. Whatever she found about her family or where she came from, or anything else, it would be okay, because he would be there.
It shouldn’t have made a difference and perhaps she shouldn’t trust him with any of this, but...she did. She just did.
‘You don’t have to be part of this,’ she said, giving him an out if he needed it. ‘I’m sure you have other things to do.’
‘I do,’ he said, his hands so warm and reassuring around hers. ‘But I always have other things to do. And you’re my wife and this is important. So, yes, I do have to be part of this.’ Amusement glinted unexpectedly in his eyes. ‘Besides, I’m interested now. I want to know what kind of woman I married.’
She took a shaky breath. It was dangerous to allow him to see how afraid and yet hopeful she was about this, and maybe it would be better if she kept this part of herself hidden. Show no weakness. Don’t be a victim.
He’ll know. You can’t hide from him.
No. He was too sharp, too perceptive, and even back in the compound, he’d seen right through her. He’d always had the ability to get under her skin. Perhaps that was why she’d asked him to help her in the first place.
Yet that was all beside the point. The real truth was that she didn’t want to hide this from him. Shewantedhim to know how she felt. Because for the first time shedidn’thave to do this alone, she had someone to help her, someone to lean on...
Ares’s gaze narrowed. ‘What is it? There’s something else you’re worried about. I can see it in your eyes.’
She swallowed and looked at him squarely. ‘What if the problem isn’t them? What if the problem is me? What if I find out who my family is and they...?’ The words stuck in her throat, that most secret fear hard to get out. But she forced herself to continue. ‘What if we contact them and they...they don’t want me? What if they don’t want to know?’
His expression didn’t change as per usual, but something in his silver-green eyes flared. ‘Why would you think that?’
She couldn’t look at him all of a sudden. She didn’t want him to see the fear that gripped her. The terrible fear that had haunted her at nights sometimes when she couldn’t sleep. When loneliness had set in and her future stretched out before her, a future that contained nothing but basic survival, years of being told what to do and cleaning rooms and being treated like dirt. Years of being trapped in the same place and never being able to leave, never being able to see the outside world. No hope. No dreams. Just endless loneliness.
The fear that no one would come for her, because no one had wanted her. She’d been abducted and trafficked, and her family had simply let her go. Intellectually she knew that might not be the case, that maybe her family had been searching for her all this time, but...how would she know? And, more importantly, when the time came to find out the truth, did she want to know it?
She stared down at his large, scarred hands and her own engulfed in them. His touch was warm, the strength in those hands reassuring. Strength enough to keep her safe and hold her together, warmth enough to chase away the cold loneliness that curled inside her even now.
‘No one came for me, Ares,’ she said, her voice gone nearly as raspy as his. ‘And I know, perhaps they just couldn’t find me. The traffickers hid their tracks well. But still, no one came. Some nights I used to wonder why that was, why I was just left there in the compound to rot.’ She swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat. ‘And I wonder sometimes if I’d done something wrong and this was a punishment. That I didn’t deserve to be rescued.’
There was a moment of silence and in it she heard her own stupid, ridiculous voice, all hoarse with fear and pain. A victim’s voice.
He must think her so pathetic. He was a warrior and he valued strength, and she wasn’t being strong. She was being broken.
Rose jerked her hands from his abruptly and turned to go, unable to even be in the same room as him while she felt so small and weak. Yet she only took two steps before iron fingers wrapped around her upper arm and she found herself pulled up against his big, hard body.
Her back was to his chest, his heat burning through her sports bra and yoga pants as if they weren’t even there. She strained at little against his grip, but then his other hand gripped her other arm, and she was held fast.
Her heartbeat thundered and there were tears in her eyes. She didn’t want him to let her go, but she couldn’t bear him to see her vulnerability. She thought she was fine with it, but she wasn’t. It felt too raw and too painful.