Page 31 of Keeping Eveline

“How about we get you inside?” he murmured after a few beats of silence.

“Fine.”

Fine.

Damn, that was never a good word to come from a woman. Everything wasn’t fine when they said it was. Fortunately, he knew he’d fucked up, so he wouldn’t insult her by asking her what was wrong.

Instead, Ox got out of the car, biting back a quick response when he rounded the hood of his SUV and found her standing by her door.

He scanned the area, not seeing anything out of the ordinary, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be on the lookout for anyone or anything that didn’t belong.

The more it sat with him, the more he was coming to the conclusion that Eveline’s attack had been premeditated and not someone having a rush of blood and taking advantage of a woman walking alone.

They reached her front door, and before she could insert the key into her lock, he placed his hand over hers.

“Let me,” he said.

“I’m more than capable of unlocking my door. You can drop the protective act, Kyle. I’m not one of your clients.”

Ox fought against the urge to press the issue. To demand that she hand over her key so he could go in and clear her apartment before she crossed the threshold.

If things were different between them, she wouldn’t mind him doing that. They weren’t, so he took a step to the side.

“It’s not an act. I know you’re not a client, I would do this for anyone who’d suffered what you suffered last night. Unlock the door Eveline, then you can rest.”

What she didn’t yet know, and he had no plans on telling her, was that he’d be staying and watching her place for the next couple of days.

Longer if he had to.

Eveline huffed out a breath, inserted the key, and opened the door, her back straight as if she was broadcasting that she was more than capable of looking after herself.

“Oh my God!”

Eveline couldn’t believe the scene in front of her. Her apartment had been trashed. Her couch cushions had been slashed; the stuffing strewn around the room. Her coffee table had been smashed and was overturned.

Her place wasn’t large, but every inch of the space was covered with her things—broken and irreparable. Tears blurred her vision when she saw the shattered vase her father had given her mother on their wedding day. It hadn’t been expensive, but Mom had loved it. Now it was gone. Her connection to her parents’ wedding lay in shards on the floor of her living room.

“Call the police,” Kyle demanded. “Stay here and don’t touch anything.”

He brushed past her, but she grabbed his arm before he got too far into the room. “What are you doing? You just told me not to touch anything, and you’re about to walk into this mess?”

“I’m not going to do anything to compromise the scene. I just need to make sure that whoever did this isn’t still here.”

The thought that they weren’t alone and someone could still be in her apartment hadn’t crossed Eveline’s mind.

A feeling of detachment stole over her. A numbness that she was there but wasn’t. As though she was watching this play out on a television screen and not in real time for her.

How had her life got so weird in the space of twenty-four hours?

What if she’d been home when this happened?

What if, whoever had ransacked her home, had decided that they wanted to play with her?

What if the person who did this had decided that Eveline’s life wasn’t worth living and had killed her?

Moving was impossible. Her feet were glued to the ground, and her arms refused to move as if they were strapped tight to her body.

“Eveline. Baby, come back to me.”

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