Page 17 of Velvet Betrayal
I snorted. “Careful, she’s a known dictator. You’ll be sentenced to puzzle court.”
“I’ve survived worse.” He locked eyes with me as he said it.
We finished the border in silence—two people pretending they weren’t in exile, just snowed in, and one little girl who had no idea what the fuck was happening.
“I want to go for a walk,” I said.
“The storm is too bad,” Kieran said.
Rosie was, thankfully, on my side. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I want to make snow angels.”
Kieran’s eyes flickered to the window, where the storm was still doing its best impression of a whiteout.
"Fine. I'll dig out the steps and get you boots. I think my niece left some here, so you should have some that fit. They might be a little big, sweetheart.”
Rosie shrugged. “It’s okay!”
He left, and I started wrestling Rosie into her puffer, gloves, and two hats, knowing we’d be outside maybe ten, maybe five minutes. She shrieked about snow angels as I tried to zip her up.
“Come on,” I said. “I need to find boots for myself.”
I looked for boots in the hall closet, found a pair that almost matched my size and jammed my feet in. Stiff soles. Not made for running, but enough to get through the drifts.
Rosie pounded down the porch, stumbling once and flailing snow everywhere. Kieran had cleared the steps and wassystematically shoveling a perimeter. His face was ruddy and his breath fogged.
The wind had let up but it was biting, each inhale strip-mining the inside of my nose. The world was absolutely still, the sky the color of a healing bruise, the woods surrounding the house so quiet it felt like a dare.
I watched Rosie wipe out, get up, and immediately start brushing snow into rough angel shapes. Kieran watched her too, and for a second, in the odd silence, our eyes met above Rosie's head.
For a second, it didn’t matter what he said. I got it. In the only way he knew how, he was trying to protect our daughter.
But something about that knowledge only pissed me off more.
I edged closer. The boots were so awkward, I almost tripped getting through the shoveled channel. “You thought of everything, didn’t you?” I said.
Kieran shrugged, leaning on the shovel like it was a prop. “It’s basic survival. But—yeah.”
We stood like that for a moment. Rosie, chugging ahead to make one, then two, then three snow angels. Kieran, fiddling with the cuff of his glove as if he needed new busywork. I watched the windows, the road, the woods, but nothing moved, not even a crow.
He kicked the snow pile. “I always wanted to take you away somewhere. Not quite this remote, but—” He left the rest unsaid.
I snorted. “Yeah, Paris seems less likely these days.”
Kieran just looked at me. Eyes softening, the tiniest crease appearing at the bridge of his nose. A look that, for a second, made me remember the boy who had once read Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabela Allende novels just to impress me.
“I know you’re angry. But I would do anything to keep you safe. Even if it upsets you.”
“You can’t strip my choices away like that.”
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I can, and will, do whatever it takes to keep you alive. How you feel about it sucks, but it is what it is. You can be angry all you want, but all I have to do is breathe close to you to see how you really feel. I can practically smell how wet it gets you. You have a pretty mouth, but you’ve never learned to lie.”
“Fucking hell, Kieran.”
He grinned. “You like it when I talk to you like that, Ruby.” He stepped closer. “But I can stop if you want. Tell me.” The old ache surfaced, curled through my throat, and I couldn’t decide if it was hate or need or both. Maybe they were always the same thing—just different temperatures.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I said, and I couldn’t look at him. If I did, I might forget the part where I should be plotting escape.
“Good,” he said, his breath a whisper against my ear. “I don’t want to stop.”
