The Promise (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 2), Bethany-Kris [top 50 books to read .txt] 📗

His hand found her cheek, then, and stayed when he added, “I want you to know—no matter what happens, or when it happens, if where you want to be is with me, then I’ll make sure you stay there. You hear me?”

At first, she said nothing. That didn’t bother Roman. His thumb stroked her cheek when she curled her fingers around his wrist.

“Do you promise?” she whispered.

She was starting to believe those.

His.

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. “I promise.”

Trapped under the weight of his stare and the softness of his touch keeping her happily present, Karine reveled in the sense of being free and possessed at the same time. It was such a foreign thing to her. At never wanting him to stop making promises—even if they might be all lies—or reaching for her, reminding her why she wanted to be alive.

What was he doing to her?

“I’m not really sure how to do this,” she told him, waving a hand between them. “Or even what this is, you know?”

A sheepish smile answered her back. Roman’s dark, husky chuckle replaced that smile with something far more tempting when he replied, “I don’t know how to be that guy that does this shit, either, but I’m trying. Half the time, I’m not even sure that I’m saying the right things, but I keep saying them anyway—hoping you understand, and trust me. That’s all I’ve got, Karine. This is it, here we are.”

She’d never seen him so unguarded. Oh, she’d had him wild, hard, and wicked in the dark. He’d given her shiver-worthy words buried into bedsheets, but nothing quite like what he just said. Nothing so freely.

Bliss heated up the back of her neck, coloring her cheeks a soft pink when she admitted, “You’re doing a good job of being that guy, though.”

That made him smile again in that humble way—it was kind of sad how seldom he smiled. Except she didn’t smile very often either, unless it was like this with him. She found herself smiling all too often, then.

Karine’s tongue swept nervously over her bottom lip as another question danced in the back of her mind, and since he was already being open and honest ... “But keeping me safe from Dima isn’t the only reason you’ve brought me here, is it?”

Roman lifted a single brow high. “How did you—”

“I wasn’t always sleeping when you were on the phone during the drive. Even if you thought I was.”

He only shook his head, but his grin didn’t falter a bit. “Good to know. And yeah, I found someone who can help. You, I mean. They might be able to help you, or give you advice and assistance for a bit. At least, while you’re here. If you’re open to it—I won’t make you do it, Karine.”

She doubted he knew it—or, maybe he absolutely did—but Roman was the first person to actually do something to help her. He recognized she needed it when everyone else had been fine to ply her with medication and hide her away where she couldn’t be seen.

It also wasn’t that simple.

Karine couldn’t blame everyone else without admitting some of her own faults, too. She hadn’t entirely accepted that something was wrong, even if she knew it, that didn’t mean she understood it, but at least she was willing to say she had to.

Wasn’t it time?

His hands slid lower, curving along the column of her neck and further down until he was cupping her shoulders at both sides. She was still on solid ground with him—she might not be the pillar holding up in the storm, but she didn’t have to be if he was there.

“It’s normal to feel afraid of the unknown, huh?”

She laughed, light and airy. “That might be the only normal thing about me, then.”

He hadn’t been expecting that, but his answering laughter was a beautiful sight to behold all the same.

“You know what, maybe that’s what people should like about you,” he replied, quieting Karine’s laughter just like that. “It’s exactly what I like about you.”

Well, then ...

• • •

The petite woman sitting at the other end of the sunlit day room in a royal blue pencil skirt was cream silk blouse, was a psychotherapist who had essentially been blackmailed to be there. Karine had figured that much out already—it was all the other details that she didn’t have bothering her. There was no other way to explain the doctor’s sudden presence when she had a feeling that doctors like the one staring at her had referral and wait lists as long as they were tall.

Karine didn’t hide the fact that she was openly assessing her as much as the woman was trying to study her, too. She’d barely let the doctor get a sentence or two out before demanding her own information.

What was she doing here? How had she made her way to the middle of Vermont?

Karine knew Roman had brought her here, but on what grounds? How much was she being paid?

Every question came out faster than the last, and by the time Karine was done asking all she had to ask, the two found themselves in an uncomfortably long staring contest.

That was fine.

Karine had time.

As it turned out—the doctor did, too.

“You don’t trust easily, do you?” she asked Karine after minutes ticked by in silence.

Karine frowned. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Michelle. Michelle Yang.”

Right.

Ph-fucking-D.

“I don’t know you to trust you.”

Michelle lifted one shoulder as if to silently say, and? “Would you like me to tell you things that are important to know about me?”

“You still haven’t answered my questions.”

The doctor nodded with a laugh, but her joy was short-lived when she replied, “My brother has a gambling problem, and he ended up owing money to the wrong people. Not that I don’t understand why he’s found himself where he has, I do, but he makes it hard to care sometimes. His children, though ... well, I do care a great deal about what happens to them. So, here I am,