His pace picked up until she had to trot to keep up with him. He paused in the doorway of his large, state-of-the-art office, and she hovered at his shoulder. “My scent is all over this room.”
She told him, “That’s because this room is yours, and you spend a lot of time in here. It’s one of those complicated concepts.”
His jaw flexed. She thought of all the places he would want to explore, that room would be at the top of the list, but after one more sweeping glance, he left it and moved on, prowling through the rest of the house, his presence brooding and intense.
She followed him everywhere he wanted to go—out on the patio, through the palatial kitchen, downstairs to the lower level.
Once, he paused for long moments in the hallway just outside of the hidden panic room. Hope surged again as she watched him. It was an exhausting, out-of-control feeling, as if it was a creature that existed entirely separate from her own needs or wishes.
But he said nothing, and after a few moments, he moved on.
Nerves started to get to her when he took the stairway up to the second floor. She felt strung out, as if she had drunk too much caffeine for too many days. At the top of the stairs he hesitated and turned right. Her heart started to pound, and her hands shook.
She thought, I should say something. I need to warn him.
“You’re afraid.” He said it over one wide shoulder as he strode down the hall, past empty bedrooms with open doors.
“Not afraid, exactly,” she replied tensely.
“Then what—exactly?”
With impeccable instincts, he paused at the closed door of Liam’s nursery and assessed her expression.
She rubbed the corner of her mouth with unsteady fingers. “It’s another one of those complicated concepts.”
He opened the door and walked inside. And froze.
Wrapping her arms around her torso, she gripped her elbows tightly as she watched him from the doorway. The line of his back, from his wide shoulders arrowing down to narrow hips, was taut.
After one pulsing second, he tore through the rest of the rooms. She rushed after him.
He stopped in Peanut’s bedroom, staring at the bright colors on the walls, the crib, the dresser with the changing pad and diapers. Liam’s favorite stuffed animal, his bunny, lay in the crib. Evidently, Hugh and Eva had forgotten to grab it when everyone evacuated.
Dragos picked it up and briefly buried his face in it. His hands clenched on the soft toy until the broad knuckles turned white.
The silence had turned deafening. She hurt everywhere. Her body physically hurt. She didn’t know where to look, or how to hold herself in such a way that the pain would lessen.
He whispered, “This is a male scent. I have a son.”
The words struck the room as loud as a shout. She swallowed hard, and her voice shook as she said, “Yes.”
He looked in the direction of the changing table. “He’s small.”
Again, she said, “Yes.”
He turned to her, his gaze incandescent and raw. “How is that possible? How could I not remember I have a son?”
“I don’t know.” She hadn’t intended to say anything, but her words acquired a life of their own and wrenched themselves out of her. “I don’t know how you could forget either of us. You’re in my bones.”
He jerked toward her, Liam’s bunny still gripped in one fist. “Where is he?”
She put her head in her hands. “He’s in the city.”
“Because of me,” he said through clenched teeth. He cut through the air with one hand. “Because I might have come back here to attack you. He was in danger because of me.”
His violent emotions beat against her skin, an invisible force, until she felt bruised all over. She needed to lean on something.
There was nowhere to go that would be strong enough to brace her against the volcanic force raging in front of her—nowhere but forward. Blindly, she walked until she collided into his chest. “Please stop,” she whispered. “You aren’t the bad guy. There isn’t a bad guy in this situation. It’s just a bad situation.”
His arms came around her. That was what she needed, more than air, more than water. She leaned on his strength, and he held her tightly.
Something came down on the top of her head—his cheek. It touched her briefly then lifted away. His arms loosened.
“I need to see the construction site,” he growled.
Stiffening her spine, she lifted her head as she stepped back. The savagery in his expression took her aback until she realized what he really needed. He felt the need to fight, but there wasn’t any enemy at hand, so he had focused on the only other thing available.
“All right,” she told him. “Let’s go. Let’s do it now.”
Pausing, he set the bunny on the dresser. His fingers seemed to linger on the toy’s soft fur. Then he turned back to her, and they walked out of the nursery together.
There was only one other place in that wing that he hadn’t explored, the closed door at the end of the hall. Glancing toward it, he looked an inquiry at her. She said briefly, “Those are our rooms.”
He hesitated. Conflicting emotions evident in his reluctant pace, he walked to the door and opened it.
A little while ago, she had been braced for him walking into their suite. Now after the raw scene in Liam’s nursery, she could hardly stand it. It felt worse than stripping her clothes off in front of a stranger, more revealing, and she couldn’t breathe as she waited to hear what he would say.
What if he disliked it? What if he rejected it?
He didn’t step over the threshold, but instead flipped on the light switch and stared for a long time at the room inside. His hands had clenched into fists again. He muttered, “This is his space with you.”
She couldn’t have heard him correctly. Shaking her head, she asked, “Excuse me, what did you say?”
Turning off the light again, he closed the door. “Never mind,” he said. His expression had shut down again. Shutting her out again.
Suddenly wild to get out of that hall, with all of its happy memories, she walked rapidly back to the staircase and took the stairs two at a time. This time he was the one who followed her. She walked out the front of the house, never bothering to shut the front door, and strode down the path to the construction site by the lake.
To the place where her life had vanished.
He stayed close on her heels. She could sense him, a great inferno of heat prowling at her back. Within a few moments, they traversed the wooded area and walked out into clear air, at the edge of the site.
As she paused, Dragos came up by her side and they looked over the scene.
Nearby, the lake sparkled peacefully in the moonlight. This construction area was not neat, like the space around their house had been. Tools, hard hats and equipment had been abandoned, and across the clearing, the pile of rubble still lay strewn at the foot of the bluff.
She covered her mouth as she stared at the place, remembering the dread and panic.
Dragos took her by the hand, lacing his fingers with hers, and drew her forward until they stood together at the base of the bluff.
She fell into the past.
Digging bare-handed through the rubble. Hoping against hope.
She was so lost in the memory of her own nightmare, it took her a few moments to realize that the large, strong hand she gripped was trembling.
Pulled out of herself, she turned to face Dragos.
The frame of his body shook. In the moonlight, he looked drawn and ill.
“What is it?” Concerned, she rubbed his arm.
His bleak gaze met hers. He said hoarsely, “I snapped at you.”
Of all the things she needed him to remember, that was the one thing she had hoped he never would.
She had a split second in which to decide how to respond. In that moment, she made a private vow to never talk about the experience.
How she had felt—the shock, the despair—was none of his business. At least she could protect him from that. They would each need to cope with their own issues that had arisen from what had happened, but for now, there was nothing else to do but confront this head-on.