Page 51 of Royally Romanov
“Why I want to help you. As you’ve said, there are a million reasons why I shouldn’t. Surely you’re wondering why I want to.”
He did, damn it.
He’d lain awake at night wondering that very thing. Finley had everything to lose and nothing to gain by helping him. What’s more, there had been moments during the past two days when he’d suspected she’d wanted to tell him no, to leave and never come back.
But something kept bringing her around, again and again. He’d known better than to ask what it was. Or maybe he was just a coward, because the fear he sometimes saw in the depths of her emerald gaze told him her reasons were rooted in pain. And he couldn’t bear the thought of someone hurting her.
“I know what it feels like to be lost, Maxim.” The anguish in her voice scraped Maxim’s insides, rendered him paralyzed.
He shouldn’t be hearing this. It would change things between them, just when he’d come to accept that he had no place in her life.
“What happened to you...” She paused, and all the air left Maxim’s lungs in a devastating whoosh, because he knew what was coming. How had he not seen it when all along it had been written in her eyes? “... it happened to me, too. I was assaulted, and it changed my life. It happened back home, in America, and it ruined everything—my education, my relationships. All of it.”
Maxim squeezed his eyes closed. But no amount of effort could rid his consciousness of the horrific images running through his mind. So he opened them and turned to meet her gaze. “Were you... ?”
Maxim couldn’t even say the words.
“Raped?” She gave him a sad smile, but a spark of defiance glittered in the depths of those eyes he loved so much. “No.”
Maxim let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Still, fury burned low in his gut. It was a deep, dark rage he’d never felt before. Not even toward his own attacker.
Howdaresomeone hurt her.
She crossed her arms, and Maxim got the sense it was an effort to hold herself together while she told him her story. “I’m still not over what happened. I thought I was, but when I met you and heard about what happened at Point Zero, I couldn’t pretend anymore. Two years ago, a stranger jumped me in the parking lot of my college campus. I’d just finished a night class—art history. My favorite class.”
She shot him a bittersweet smile that just about killed him, then continued, “He took a locket that had belonged to my great-grandmother. He ripped it right off of my neck. I ended up with a broken collarbone and two cracked ribs. They never caught my attacker. I couldn’t go back to school. I lost interest in my friends. Eventually, people stopped waiting around for me to move on.” She swallowed. “Even the man I was seeing grew tired of waiting.”
Maxim bit his tongue to prevent himself from voicing his thoughts about a man who would lose patience when someone he loved had been victimized. “You had nothing to be ashamed of, Finley. I hope you know that.”
“I do.” She nodded, and he caught a glimpse of defiance in the upward tilt of her chin. “I had a rough go of it for a while, but I also knew I couldn’t let that nameless, faceless stranger win. So I came here and completed my studies at the École du Louvre. It was just what I needed—a fresh start in a faraway place. A new beginning. I’m not okay, Maxim. But I’m getting there. Finally. For the first time in years, I feel connected to another person, and that person is you.”
“Finley.” He swallowed. With great difficulty. “I’m so sorry.”
Eyes flashing, she shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. Just let me help you.”
He wanted to. God, how he wanted to.
He’d known she’d felt it, too. At times he’d had his doubts, but on a soul-deep level, he’d known. The feelings he had for her, a woman he hardly knew, couldn’t be one-sided. Something special was happening between them. Something sacred. Something that started two weeks ago at Point Zero, before they’d even met.
New beginnings.
But now that he knew what had happened to her, he could never let her continue to put herself at risk. Maybe that made him a chauvinist ass. He didn’t care. He cared more about protecting her than he cared about any of the names written in his journal. What difference did the past make if solving its mysteries hurt someone in the present?
Someone special. Someone like Finley.
He shook his head. “I can’t let you help me. I just can’t. Please understand.”
Ever so slowly, Finley’s expression closed like a book. She probably hated him now. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. She’d shown him her vulnerability, just as he’d shown her his on a bench in the Tuileries. He remembered how exposed he’d felt that afternoon among the tulips while she’d flipped through his journal. He’d fully expected her to tell him he was crazy and disappear back inside her grand museum.
But she hadn’t. She’d trusted him. She’d believed in him even when it didn’t make sense, and now she had every right to expect him to return the favor.
He wished he could.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” She reached for her bag, resting beside the cash register on the bookshop’s counter. “Your photograph.”
“Keep it. Put it in the exhibit. It’s yours,” he said. “So is this.”
He removed his grandmother’s charm bracelet from his pocket and set it on the counter. He wasn’t entirely sure why he did it, except that Finley had lost her great-grandmother’s locket and the things she’d just told him had left him feeling utterly powerless. He knew he couldn’t fix what had happened to her or make it go way. He couldn’t let her help him anymore, either. Not in good conscience.
But he could leave her with something. He could leave her with this.
Wide-eyed, Finley stared at the bracelet.
By the time she looked up, Maxim was already gone.
