Her gaze narrowed. ‘I’m not afraid. It’s only... I haven’t been in a helicopter before.’
She might not have been in a helicopter before, but she was lying about not being afraid. Still, it was better that she be annoyed with him for pointing it out than giving in to her fear and cowering.
At the thought of her fear, the fire sitting in his chest burned brighter, hotter, the sensation so unfamiliar and alien that he couldn’t process it. And he wasn’t sure why he was feeling it now, when for years he’d felt nothing. He’d always sought Naya’s memory for guidance about moral matters, yet now something inside him, an instinct he’d thought long dead, believed that what had happened to Rose was terrible and wrong, and she must be helped.
It was ridiculous. He couldn’t understand what it was about her that should ignite any sensation in him at all. Perhaps it was merely physical, some by-product of desire.
‘You will have to get used to it, since you are out now,’ he said. ‘If you want to go to Paris, I will take you—’
‘As I was saying,’ she interrupted suddenly. ‘I have no money to pay you back now, but the moment I do, I swear I will.’
He stared at her. ‘You don’t have to pay me, Rose.’ Her name tasted oddly sweet on his tongue. ‘You owe me nothing.’
‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘Yes, I do. You paid money for me.’
‘And I have plenty of money. It was nothing.’
‘It’s not nothing.’ There was an oddly determined look on her face. ‘I know how things work. You don’t get something for nothing. You paid for me and now I owe you a debt.’
The anger inside him kept on burning, scorching a hole in him. He didn’t want it. He’d left his emotions in ashes on the floor of his burned-out house, and he was all the better for it. They weren’t supposed to rise like a phoenix to haunt him again.
‘You have no money,’ he said curtly. ‘Even if I did demand a price from you, exactly what are you supposed to pay me back with?’
She didn’t look away. ‘Well, what do you want?’
He didn’t know why in the end he said it. But say it he did. ‘What do I want? What I want, Rose, is a wife.’
Rose had prepared herself for the scarred man to want any number of awful things, but wanting a wife was not one of them.
She found herself staring at him in shock.
The unfamiliar movement of the helicopter and the dull, rhythmic sound of the rotors were almost overwhelming even with the headset on, and she was overwhelmed enough as it was.
First, one of the house thugs had come to find her and had dragged her roughly outside. Naturally, she’d been anticipating a beating. Perhaps the scarred man had complained about her behaviour to Vasiliev and now she would be punished for her temerity.
Except she hadn’t been punished.
She’d been dragged to the helicopter sitting on the helipad instead, and pushed inside it, a headset jammed on her head.
Nothing had been explained to her, but she was used to being in the dark about everything. She’d sat there, fighting fear, thinking that she was being taken to her new owner already and wondering whether there was any point to leaping out and running. At the same time, she also knew that no, there was no point, not when she had nowhere to run to.
Then, just as despair had set in, an immensely tall, broad figure had appeared from out of the house, illuminated by the outside lights and striding towards the helicopter.
There was no mistaking him. The scarred man. And she knew in that moment that he hadn’t lied. He’d promised to get her out and he had.
A thousand questions had tumbled through her head, but then he’d pulled open the door and got in beside her, and every single one of those questions had vanished as quickly as they’d come.
The interior of the helicopter had felt very small, as if it had shrunk somehow, and he was taking up all the room. Every part of him seemed big and hard, wide shoulders, broad chest and powerful thighs. And what room he didn’t take up physically he filled with the sheer weight of his presence.
She felt flattened by the force of him and his stare as he’d turned to look at her, the lights from the outside turning his scars into deep crevasses and gouges. Frightening and yet there was a strange beauty to him too. She didn’t know how to process it.
She didn’t know how to process her feelings either since there seemed to be many of them. Sharp relief that she was leaving. Terror at having to face a world she had only read about, never visited. Regret that she hadn’t been given time to bring anything with her—not that she had anything anyway—or even say goodbye to anyone. Not that anyone would care except Athena. Excitement that she would finally see all those places she’d read about. Intense anxiety about what to do next.
Then he’d told her that he’d paid money for her, and while it might have indeed been the quickest way to get her out, it now meant that she owed him. And while he might say that no, she owed him nothing, there was a debt there all the same. A string tying her to him, ensuring she’d never be completely free.
Or at least, not unless she paid him back.
He’d made it clear he wasn’t after her body, and so she’d been prepared to offer him money—or at least future earnings from whatever job she’d managed to land. However, it seemed he didn’t want money either.