“Where you would have been safe and had medical attention,” he reminded. He could tell she found it difficult to admit that she was afraid.
She bent her head again, and he couldn’t help but look at the vulnerable nape of her neck. He had the sudden urge to lean over and brush his mouth over that soft spot.
“I needed you, Kane, not your friends. They aren’t my friends. They aren’t people I trust. I’ve lived too long in captivity and I’ve had a taste of freedom. I won’t let our child live like I had to, with Whitney documenting every single moment of my life and dictating what I could and couldn’t do.”
“I understand.” And damn it all, he did. She’d been trained to be a soldier, experimented on, and then shoved into a breeding program. It was a monstrous life she’d led, and had it been him, he would have done anything to get free and stay that way. “Tell me about Jimenez.”
She flashed a brief, rather wan smile. “I’m getting there in my own roundabout way. I knew I had to find a safe place to have the baby, and just in case, learn how to deliver it myself.”
“You f**king have to be kidding me, Rose,” he burst out. “You make me crazy. You really do. Both of you could die, don’t you know that?”
“Of course I know it,” she said. “I’m not crazy and I’m not stupid. I’m careful, Kane. I studied hard. I was careful to learn about pregnancy and what I needed to make the baby healthy.”
“You didn’t have a blood test, or any of the tests, did you?”
“How could I?” she defended. She sounded close to tears. “I did the best I could for her. Better both of us dead than back with Whitney.”
Kane put the empty soup bowl down and slipped his arm around her shoulder. “I know you did. It’s just the thought of you out there alone, trying to figure it all out by yourself, when I should have been there with you, makes me want to shoot somebody.”
She leaned into him. “Preferably not me.”
He laughed at her choice of words. “Not you, sweetheart. You might make me want to pull out every hair on my head, but I’d never hurt you.”
Rose studied Kane’s face—that face she dreamt about for eight long months. His beautiful, masculine carved features and his vivid piercing green eyes took her breath away. She couldn’t look too long at him, afraid he’d see her reaction. From the window of her cell and the workout yard, she’d watched him just like a stalker might. Looking had turned into longing. He was a strong, confident male, definitely one who was skilled in his chosen profession. She watched other males, all strong as well, step back when he walked through a small crowd, yet he always seemed to treat everyone fairly. She loved everything about him from his wide shoulders to the strong lines in his face and his sudden, heart-stopping smile.
She had dreamt of him long before she betrayed him. Wanting him. Building fantasies and unrealistic dreams until she became almost obsessed with him. When Whitney insisted on bringing in those horrible men with their lecherous smiles, uncaring that she didn’t want them, men willing to force her, she’d become a desperate woman who would do anything to escape. A woman who would sell another human being into a living hell to gain her own freedom. She swallowed hard and looked away, ashamed of her need and her cowardice. She sold him out, and even now, she couldn’t let him go.
“Rose, what is it?”
His voice was so gentle it turned her heart over. She felt his baby kick inside her, a strong reminder she would always have a part of him. The soup tasted like ashes now, the seeds of guilt and shame stripping her of all appetite. She placed the bowl on the nightstand. He was a man of honor, and she’d taken his pride, forced him into an untenable position with no way out. He loathed himself for getting her pregnant, and no matter how many times she told him it had been her choice, her decision, he refused to allow her to shoulder the blame. He was waiting patiently for her to answer his simple question—“What is it?”—but the answer wasn’t nearly as simple as the question.
“I’m sorry I got you into this, Kane, but I’m not sorry you’re here with me. I’m afraid.”
There. She’d admitted it out loud. If the truth were told, she was terrified. She was so tired and she desperately needed to rest, to spend twenty-four hours without fear.
She’d been alone for so long, scared for herself and for the baby. She looked up at him, ashamed, but unable to lie to him. “I need you.”
She loved his face, all those hard lines, his strong jaw, those cool, clear eyes. There was no subterfuge in Kane. He didn’t have a hidden agenda—not like she had. He didn’t lie about how he felt. He didn’t hide the fact that his body wanted her and he was uncomfortable with it. She doubted if there were too many men like him in the world. She didn’t need just anyone; she needed him.
“I figured that out when I came up behind you in the room and you didn’t put up much resistance.” He smoothed back the hair falling around her face and ran the pad of his thumb down her skin.
Rose tried not to shiver. Just as he’d entered the room where she waited for the informant, she’d inhaled and drawn his scent deep into her body, down into her lungs. She’d wanted to hold him there forever. She’d been so shocked that Kane had been the one to come for the hostages. Could a woman fall in love with a man just by observing him? By watching him through a window? She was afraid she lived in a dream world, not reality, because she had been alone and frightened far too long. There was no one else but Kane. Who else did she have? The other women in the compound had escaped and scattered to the winds, leaving her to face the birth of her baby alone. She wanted to burrow into him, stay in his arms where she felt safe, where she felt she finally had a sanctuary.
He thought he’d hurt her when he’d had sex with her, that she had chosen him as the lesser of all evils—and maybe that was true to a small extent—but he’d made her feel beautiful and special when no one ever had. He made her feel as if she mattered for the first time in her life. He’d been so gentle. She dreamt of him nearly every night, and now, being so close to him, the image of him rising above her, his body locked deep inside hers, flooded her mind and refused to leave.
“Rose,” he prompted. “Talk to me about Jimenez. I think it’s important. How did you meet the man?”
“Diego moved into the apartment across the street from mine.”
“After you, then. You were already established in your apartment?”
Rose nodded, her heart beginning to pound. She knew where this was going now, and she couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to be duped.
“Who lived in that apartment when you first arrived? And why did they leave?”
She was so tired. She just wanted to weep. And go to sleep. She shifted, a subtle movement, sliding closer to him, dropping her head on his chest. He had one of those thick chests that inspired fantasies and made a woman feel perfectly safe. She was very fond of his chest—a little hard though—but she found the perfect spot for her head. His arms closed around her, and her heart jumped. So did the baby. She closed her eyes and took his hand to press his palm to her belly where their child played. Beneath his palm, the baby pushed as if in greeting.
Rose expected him to pull his hand away, but his fingers, beneath hers, spread wide to take in more. She relaxed a little, allowing some of the tension to ease from her body. “There was a multi-generation family in the apartment when I first moved in. It was crowded, so I just figured they’d found a bigger place to live.”