Page 122 of Ruby Malice

Jealousy rears up in me, green and consuming, at the thought of anyone else taking care of Rayne. “You’re better than that.”

“I’m not so sure,” she says with a surprising lash of self-directed viciousness. Then she shrugs it off. “But that’s still the life my sisters want for me. They think I threw away my life taking care of my mom. But I don’t feel that way. I mean, she was my mom, you know? She gave me everything. How could I abandon her at the end?”

The cold settles into my bones as I say, “You can’t. If you love someone, you never abandon them.”

My voice hangs in the air between us like smoke. I look over to see Rayne is staring at me, something unreadable in her eyes. After a few seconds, she blinks and shakes her head. “Yeah, well, they weren’t super close with her. Not the way I was. After the divorce, they took Dad’s side, I guess you could say. They’ve always been closer with him.”

“But you aren’t?”

“I didn’t really have the option to be,” she says. “There’s a big age gap between me and my sisters. My parents got divorced when I was little, but he was around the entire time my sisters were growing up. I was barely walking when he took off and got remarried. He started a whole other family, so he didn’t have much time for me.”

“Fuck him and your sisters both.”

Rayne laughs. “If I’d known you were going to be on my side, then I would have told you all of this a lot sooner.”

Oh, if only she knew.Since the moment Rayne approached my table, I’ve been on her side.

I blew up an alliance for Rayne. I ended a long-term engagement for Rayne. And I’ve broken every single one of the rules I have around Ilya and who is allowed to be close to him—all for Rayne.

“If you think I haven’t been on your side, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

She goes still for a second, absorbing what I said. Then she leans back on her hands in the sand, her fingertips dangerously close to the line I’ve drawn.

“Maybe I’m not good at recognizing the signs. There are very few people rooting for me,” she says. “There was my mom and my best friend, Harmony. But Harmony moved to Italy for some suave Italian boy. And my mom died. And then all the stuff with my sisters… I’ve always felt pretty alone. I moved in with Lana to fix things. That was the goal, at least.” She blows out a frustrated breath. “That was what I thought I wanted. But it seems impossible. She spends all of her time telling me I should be so much further along in life. She hates my jobs and she wants me to go back to school. She thinks I wasted time taking care of Mom when I should’ve just dumped her in a nursing home and gone hubby-hunting. But that’s how she chose to live her life, and she’s still miserable.”

“Most people are,” I murmur.

Rayne looks over at me, a question in her eyes.What about you, Kirill? Are you miserable?Instead of asking it, she shakes her head. “Maybe Lana is right. I’m living in her guest house, taking on temporary work where I can find it. I’d think I was a loser if I was her.”

“Taking care of your family does not make you a loser,” I snarl. “Believe me, I know.”

“I guess you do know, huh? More than most people anyway,” she says softly. “You know something? I should probably regret breaking your rules and sneaking up to the third floor that day, but I don’t. Finding out about Ilya and everything you do for him…” She gives me a small smile. “It’s the first time you seemed real to me. You really care about him. It’s one of the things I like about you.”

“Feel free to continue down the list.”

She snorts. “Shut up. I may be off-duty now, but I have to show up at work tomorrow morning. I can’t be blushing in front of the boss all the time. People will grow suspicious.”

I reach over and brush my thumb across the apple of her cheek. “Too late for that.”

Rayne’s face explodes with heat. She tucks her chin in, pulling her face away from me. I take my hand back.

I crossed the line first.

So much for my restraint.

“If it’s any consolation,” I say gruffly, “taking care of your mother is nobler than what I do. I’m a lot of things, but selfless isn’t one of them.”

She shakes her head, a bang falling loose over her face in the process. My fingertips itch to smooth it away. “I don’t buy that. Becoming a caregiver for someone always involves some selflessness. It’s impossible for it not to. Pretend to be the bad guy all you want, but there’s goodness in you.”

She might be right.

Unless you’re the reason they need the caregiving in the first place.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I say. “I’m all Ilya has.”

“What about your parents?”

“Dead.”

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