Page 8 of Ruthless Savage

I am too. She knows me too well.

“And is there? Something wrong?”

She nods, her brows tugging. “My father, he’s been talking to someone.” She swallows harshly. “He’s gonna marry me off, I think.”

God damn it!

“You have to do whatever your father tells you to do.”

Her eyes slant with curtained fury. “Is that what you really think? Or is that you running?” She slants her body closer. “What are you afraid of? That we would actually make sense?”

Her fingers feather across the top of my hand, and this time I don’t push her off. My skin burns, tingling like it’s been dead until this very moment.

“I’m thirty-five. You’re eighteen. You even comprehending what you’re saying?”

“So you’ve thought about it?” Her gaze fills with some semblance of hope that I’m about to shatter into pieces.

“No. I haven’t. I think it’s laughable, really.” I chuckle coldly, pushing myself back into the chair. “You’re a child. I’m a man. I’d never marry you, Eriu, let alone feck you.”

Her mouth parts, and tears paint her lower lashes. I remember my mother’s words then, that I’m not good enough for a woman. Never gonna be good enough for her.

“How—how can you say that?” She sniffles under her breath. “Right before you went to prison, we really connected. You told me about your family. Your brother. How much you loved him. Did you forget?”

She swipes under her lashes, and I want to be the one to touch her silky skin, to replace her tears with her beautiful laughter.

But I’m nothing but a damaged, rotten corpse, breathing just to exist. I can’t ruin her, and that’s exactly what I’d do if we were together. She milks goats, for feck’s sake. We’re different in so many ways.

I shouldn’t even want to be her bodyguard again. Nothing good would come of it.

How long will I be able to fight this attraction? How will I be able to remain unaffected when I’m around her all the time?

Maybe it would be a good thing if Patrick didn’t want me back. I could disappear somewhere and forget all about her.

A pang hits my chest at the thought of not seeing her every day.

I used to see her all the time—holidays, birthdays, watched her grow up. Her family is close, and I was a part of it.

I can’t be that way anymore. I must let that part of my life go. But what do I have without them? Nothing. That family is all I know.

Patrick owns acres of land in Boston, beautiful farmland with homes he’s built for his children and the soldiers who have no place of their own. So he gave them one. Built an underground school for the future enforcers of the generation too, everything connected through intricate tunnels, dorms for the students and more space for anything they need.

It’s where I started, and where I taught on occasion before I ended up here. I didn’t just teach, I led by example. I’ve killed more men for the Quinns than I can count, and I’d do it again if they’d let me. At least that would keep me away from her.

“I haven’t forgotten the things we discussed,” I finally tell her. “But it didn’t mean what you thought it did.”

It meant everything.

I had never opened up like that before. Not even to my brother when he was alive. No one knew how much I missed him. Not even me. Not until I sat on her sofa and told her stories about him.

And she listened. My God, did she listen. She took every word like it was gold, and after that, she fed me. She can cook like the best of them. The flavor of that curry chicken was like tasting heaven.

She shakes her head, her wounded gaze sinking into my soul. I want to walk out and act like I never saw her. Like I didn’t just break her beautiful heart. Like I didn’t just hurt someone who doesn’t even realize how much she means to me.

“You should go, Eriu. And this time don’t come back because you won’t see me again.”

Defeat flits through her features. “Is your lawyer working on your appeal?”

“Aye. Trying to get me out on some technicality I don’t understand.”

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