His jaw hardened. He leaned into the door, chest rising as he absorbed her offense. “I’d promised I would. What else would I do? Renege?”
“You didn’t have to do all that other stuff.” She folded her arms, unable to look directly at him while she relived the sting of being bought off for her sexual favors. She had thought they had shared their bodies with each other freely. Hers had definitely been offered without expectation of compensation.
“I’d promised you that too.”
“Well, I didn’t have to accept it, so I didn’t,” she spat out with rancor, hating how cheap he’d made her feel.
“You still could have told me where you were going,” he bit out. His voice was so censorious it made her stiffen. “You didn’t have to disappear without a word. An email doesn’t take any effort at all.”
Taken aback by that, Clair choked out a laugh. “Oh, didn’t you get my response to yours?”
His eyebrows slammed together. “I didn’t email you.”
Clair only lifted her eyebrows, waiting for the penny to drop.
With a muttered curse, Aleksy pushed his hand through his hair and tried to pace across the tiny space of her office. He only moved two short steps before swinging back to her.
Clair snapped to attention, aching from the tension of holding herself in this state of readiness. Her palms were sweating within the knots of her fists. “Why are you here, Aleksy?” It seemed rather cruel, quite honestly. She’d managed to move on with her life, not well, but she was doing it. This was going to be a setback of epic proportions. There would be fresh tears she didn’t want to shed.
“I’m here to find you.” He said it impatiently, as if she ought to know. “I didn’t know where else to look, so I came here to ask if they had any contact information on you and they told me you were down the hall. I almost had a heart attack.”
Intensity radiated off him, as though he was still keyed up from the discovery.
“There’s such a thing as a telephone. You could have called the office,” she pointed out. Heat rose on her cheeks and she shifted. The room was too small to contain them both. “Why didn’t you put Lazlo on the job? He probably tagged my ear with a GPS when I wasn’t looking.”
“I was worried.” He seemed uncomfortable with the admission, but the words came out of him as though they wouldn’t stay inside. “You can’t just walk away like that, Clair,” he scolded. “I’ve lost people I loved, and that pain doesn’t ever go away. Not knowing where you were or if you were safe was equally as bad.”
All her defensive anger fell away, leaving a heart that began beating wildly. She reminded herself that he was just a very protective man with a ferocious sense of responsibility. This wasn’t personal.
“Aleksy, I grew up here. Right here.” She pointed to the ceiling where two floors up she had shared an attic bedroom with a number of different girls over the years. “To get a workspace in this building, where wards of the state live, I had to pass about a million background checks. That’s how serious they are about security. I’m living next door to the police chief. The bus driver greets me by name and his wife sells me eggs. Where do you want me to live that you think I’d be safer?”
He had his unmarked cheek to her and she saw how utterly beautiful he would have been if both sides of his face matched. When he swung his face around, she was almost relieved to see the scar. It made him human and reachable. Mortal.
His jaw worked as though he wanted to say something but thought better of it. A long minute of silence drew out, pulling her nerves taut.
“You’re happy, then?” he finally asked, cheek ticking.
She hugged her coat around her as she shrugged. “It’s a little like I’ve come home, even though…” She frowned, searching for the words. “I feel good because I know I’ll make positive changes for the children here, but it’s still a place that makes me sad. I wish…” She had to press her lips together to keep them from quivering. “I wish they all had proper homes to go to.”
He nodded and the empathy in his expression was more than she could bear. A lump lodged in her chest and she looked away.
After a moment, she found a wry smile even though it was the last thing she felt like doing. “I’m not used to checking in with anyone, you know that. I should have at least told Lazlo not to pay the rent on an empty flat. Sorry about that.”
“The money doesn’t matter.” Aleksy seemed to consume her with his eyes. He’d accomplished his goal, so she wondered why he didn’t leave. She was safe here, but the longer he lingered, the more danger she felt. She ached to touch him. Give herself over to him. Again.