Page 32 of Brutal Knight

“Aiden…he’s been great,” Rose says. She laughs a little, ducking her head. It makes me think of a teenage girl talking about her crush. “And I’m working as a curator at a museum now.”

“Really? Isn’t that…?”

“What I wanted, yeah,” she says, grinning. “I still can’t believe I get to wake up every day and go to work somewhere I love.”

“That’s great.”

I mean it. I’m happy for her. I remember how unsure she was at one time, how new she seemed to be to this world. I’m glad she didn’t have to give up on a dream to make it. I’m glad Rose has this one thing to keep her going.

And it feels nice to have a normal conversation, letting things feel easy for just a few minutes.

I can almost pretend I’m just an average woman, talking to her friend and catching up about life.

Rose nods. “You should come by some time. We can get coffee.”

“Sure.”

I don’t know if it will ever happen. I don’t know if Connor will let me out until we get married, or after. There’s so much I don’t know about the future.

Rose nods. She seems to understand that I’m tired, that I don’t know what to think or do about my situation anymore. She leans over to hug me for a second, and the contact feels nice. She doesn’t want anything from me, she just wants to comfort me.

I wish this could be my life. I wish I could just have a quiet life, talk to other women, avoid the mafia and the men in it at all costs. It’s too painful to give any of them trust, too heartbreaking to be let down over and over again.

Rose pulls back for a second, her gaze searching my face for something. I don’t know if she finds it.

“I’ll see you soon, okay? We can talk anytime.”

I nod and watch her leave, slipping back out the door she came through.

She shuts the door behind her, but it doesn’t immediately lock. I know what’s coming, so I sit and watch until it opens again a moment later, swinging to let Connor in.

I tense when he steps foot inside, but he just has a tray with food. Still, my entire body is stiff.

Connor sets the tray down beside me. I wait for him to retreat a little, to a chair in the corner near me. He’s far enough to put me at ease enough to eat. I still don’t want to yet.

“She asked to come here,” Connor says quietly.

I’m not sure if he thinks the truth will make me like him more. I don’t know if I wouldn’t have believed him, if he told me it was his idea. I can buy him complaining to his brothers. Maybe Rose overheard, or maybe he asked her for advice with me.

I don’t think it matters. It was good to see her, but I’m not sure how much I’ll listen to her advice about starting over. I don’t know if I can risk that.

Whether it was his idea or not, the outcome hasn’t changed. No amount of other people telling me to trust him is going to work. My friends told me to trust my father, trust Dmitri, right before I left New York. They told me to trust that I’d be happy.

And that didn’t exactly end well.

Connor leans forward, arms on his knees. “I just hoped she might…I don’t know. Keep you company.”

“She did.”

“I’m not sure what she said, but it doesn’t matter. I just wanted you to know I’m not going to keep you away from the world.”

Like Dmitri did.

He doesn’t say the words, but I can hear them lingering in the air between us.

“I don’t expect anything,” I say. It’s true. “I know you and your family will always have a grudge against me.”

“I wasn’t born an O’Reilly,” Connor replies suddenly.

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