Her eyes blinked open, sleepy and heavy lidded. “Sasha?”

“Yes?”

“Want you.” She grabbed his wrist and pulled up, his fingers slid inside of her. “Need you so bad.”

He kissed her and whispered, “I’ll take care of you, sweetheart.” He would take care of her forever. For as long she allowed. “Relax.”

Letting go of his wrist, she pushed the covers away. Her legs fell open and for the longest time he watched himself touch her there. As he made her body shake and tremble. As her moans filled the room.

Dipping his head, he tugged a cherry red nipple into his mouth and sucked hard. She cried out his name, arms rising to find her pillow. She fisted it between her hands.

His cock was so fucking hard right now, but he wanted to remain selfless. He closed his eyes and circled her nipple with his tongue. He wanted—

Her hands grasped his cock, stroking him. Rolling to the side, he kissed her deeply, his tongue mimicking his fingers.

She gasped his name into his mouth as she came. As he moaned hers, his own orgasm shaking him to his very core. Jesus Christ. He couldn’t leave her. Not now. Not ever. There had to be a way for them to be together.

She smiled at him, tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” He smoothed a stray curl from her face. “Go back to sleep, love.” She nodded and closed her eyes.

After cleaning himself off, he shot from the bed and headed to the bathroom. He made use of the facilities and dressed in record time.

Pressing a soft kiss to Rose’s cheek, he left the room and jogged down the stairs, surprised to see the owner, Haven Crawford, lugging in a large box through the front entrance.

“Need some help?”

Haven shot him a grateful smile and handed it over. “Didn’t take you for an early riser.”

“Rose’s still sleeping, and I couldn’t.” Sasha followed her to the back and set the box down on the floor in Haven’s private quarters. “All of Rose’s clothes were burned in the fire, and—”

Haven gestured to the box. “Already taken care of.”

“For Rose?” He knelt in the floor, prying the flaps apart. He pulled out jeans and sweaters. Skirts and shoes. Everything from the mentionable to unmentionables filled the box. All were clean, most still had tags, but it didn’t matter because someone or someones cared enough about Rose to help her out. Before she had to ask.

Hell, knowing Rose, she wouldn’t have asked for help.

“Gabriel Edwards dropped it off,” Haven said.

Sasha dropped a rather nice-looking pair of pumps. “Who is he—Superman?”

Haven lifted her brows. “It came from the clothes closet at Grace Church. Most likely, his momma and sister picked them out before sending it over.”

“I’ll take all this up to her.” He started to heft the box in his arms, but a quick shake of Haven’s head made him stop.

“I want to hang it all up, iron anything that needs it and generally make everything look nice for Rose. I have some luggage she can borrow, too.” Haven began taking out the clothes, laying them across the sofa and lining up shoes along the bottom. “There’s more coming, Gabriel said, and Jemma Leigh’s organizing a drive for Rose or something like that.”

He could only imagine the ‘something like that’ Jemma Leigh would have in mind, but it would be from the heart. It seemed like there was nothing for him to do now.

Standing, he dusted off his trousers. “Why are you doing this?”

“Rose sends her couples to me.”

“Her couples?” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Haven glanced up at him “The ones that take her advice to look for the spring. Almost always, there’s an engagement. And almost always, they have their wedding here. Or a reception if they want to do the church thing.” Haven bent back over the box, pink hair with purple tips sliding to the side. “She sent me my first customer two years ago, when I first opened for business. This is the least I can do for her.”

“You believe in the legend of the spring?”

Haven snorted. “’Course not. But I believe in Rose and so do a lot of other people.” Haven gathered some clothes and handed them to Sasha. She selected a pair of flats and the heavy winter coat from the bottom of the box, adding them to his pile. “Take these to her.”

Sasha dashed off to his room, throwing open the door. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

Rose sat up. “Morning.”

He dropped the clothes on the bed. “Guess what I’ve got for you. Well, not me exactly. There’s loads more…Rose?”

Rose didn’t answer him. She sat with the covers pulled to her chest and her gaze on the comforter.

“Haven sent these to you. They’re from Edwards’ church.” He hated even mentioning the man’s name, but credit had to be given where it was due. “Apparently, that’s the tip of the iceberg. If you’d like some help putting outfits together, I’ll volunteer—as long as you promise to model the lingerie for me.”

She lifted the flats and turned them over, then dropped them on the floor. “Are those supposed to make up for my house burning down?”

This was so not his Rose, but allowances had to be made. She’d just lost everything. Running a palm over his jaw, he took a shaky breath. “I know it’s not cheesecake, but new clothes always worked for me. Sex, too. I am a man, after all.” When she didn’t look up from the bed, he sat down beside her. “Help me out here.”

“I’ll thank Haven and Gabriel when I see them.” She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head on them.

He stroked her hair, watching as the curls came loose from her braid. “Come away with me. We’ll go any place you want—although I do have some recommendations. There’s this little island off of Spain you’d like.” This he could do for her. He could make her forget for a while. Hell, if he could convince her, he would keep her with him. Until he was free and then they’d really be free—together. Go anywhere, do anything without anyone giving a damn.

“And do what?” she finally asked.

Sasha lifted a curl from her shoulder and rubbed it between his fingers. “Sleep, eat, shop…make love.”

“You want me to leave, to run away from my problems and responsibilities?”

“You deserve more than this kind of life.” He dropped the curl between his fingers and grabbed the cross at his neck.

“Is that all?” she asked, her voice monotone. Emotionless.

Was that all? He looked around the room, struggling to keep his temper in check. “I want to spend every day…every minute with you, Rosebud.”

Pretty blue eyes met his. In their depths was so much pain that it made him want to reach for her. To kiss and hold her until the world fell away and no one could hurt her again. “Until your uncle has other plans for you.”

He sucked in a breath, “I’ve no choice.”

“So you say.” Her gaze was unwavering.

Blood rushed to his head. “What kind of sick fuck makes something like that up?”

“The kind that preys on an innocent woman and her family. The kind that makes her think that she matters, that makes her think you care about her when all you really wanted to do was have a little fun while you bided your time,” Rose said, shoving away the covers and reaching for the clothes he’d brought to her. “The kind who suggests a vacation after her home is destroyed, after her family leaves her all alone. After her baby is taken away.”

“Ivy went home with her mother,” he pointed out and she flinched.

Rose tugged a pale orange sweater over her head. “Am I supposed to wait around while you screw up someone else’s life?” She yanked on a pair of panties, then jeans. “And when you’re done, I should welcome you back into my bed, never knowing if you’ve been with someone else.”

He stood up, then began pacing the room. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Not even to save your mother?”

Her parting shot almost made him march out of the room right then and there. But she’d been through so much in the past twenty-four hours that he couldn’t bring himself to leave her. “What do you want from me, Rose?” he asked as their eyes met. “I want you with me. I’m begging you to go. Please, you have to go.”

Rose’s heart pounded in her chest. There were lots of things she wanted to from him, but he couldn’t give her any of it. She was tempted to take him up on his offer. How easy it would be to leave this place. To start over like her sisters had chosen to do, but she couldn’t. She belonged here.

“Why?”

“I bloody fucking owe you, that’s why,” he shouted and her heart quit pounding. It sank in her chest, heavy with despair. He thought he owed her. It was his only reason for even suggesting she leave Holland Springs.

“I can’t go with you,” she whispered and grabbed the coat from the bed.

His jaw worked. “Can’t or won’t?”

This wasn’t easy for her. Who would choose to live a life like this, confined to a role she had no desire to play. “I’m Poppy, my mother was Poppy, her mother before her. It’s just the way things are.”

“No one gives a damn about Poppy Holland.” He shook his head and rapped his knuckles on the mantle above the fireplace. “No one knows who that is anymore. Your family’s the ones clinging to the past.”

“It’s all I have left.”

He gave her an incredulous look. One that was underlined with vulnerability, but she refused to let it sway her. “You have me,” he said.

“Because you owe me.”

“Yes. No…fuck it all.” He strode to her, gripping her shoulders. His heated gaze pierced her heart. “Don’t you want something different?”

Yes, she wanted something different, but she did not want to be with a man who thought he owed her. Who’d mentioned nothing of love. She loved Sasha—God, she loved him. But she refused to stand by him why he worked for his uncle. It wasn’t about him choosing his mother over her. She’d never ask him to. And the thing she knew Sasha wanted the most was the thing that being with her would never give him—his freedom. “I want you to leave me alone.”

Sasha’s green eyes shuttered and his hands fell to his sides. His face was devoid of emotion, of warmth. “Fine. Stay here and rot for all I care.”

“Good-bye, Sasha.”

She slipped her feet into the flats and moved to the door, closing it softly behind her. Forcing the tears back, she closed her eyes to pain, not wanting to think of how tenderly he’d taken care of her last night. How he’d touched her so reverently and like she was made of glass. As if he knew that all the cracks in her soul were threatening to break her body into pieces. Then this morning, the most intimate time of her life.

She told herself that she didn’t need Sasha in her life. That she’d made the right decision. That sometimes a person had to set free the person they loved the most.

She’d always hated old sayings like that, because it was obvious that whoever thought it up had never gone through it themselves.

Lifting her chin, she descended the stairs and went to find Haven.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sasha boarded the jet, flinging the painting of Poppy Holland in the nearest chair and hoping like hell he’d damaged the thing.

He wasn’t waiting until next week to leave. Today would suit him just fine.

Except he wasn’t fine. He was the exact opposite of it. He was the most miserable sod on the face of the planet and couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

For some reason known only to God and Rose, she was convinced that she belonged in that ass-backwards town. That she had to be Poppy Holland to a generation that cared little and knew nothing of what it meant to her. Jason Everett hadn’t preyed on Rose solely because of her last name. Jason had done it because he was an unfeeling asshole. Unfortunately and most likely, Rose wasn’t the first or the last woman he would hurt.

Perhaps Vladimir had been right all along. Sasha should have never tried playing the hero. Look what it had gotten him. Absolutely nothing. His uncle still plotted, his cousins were either not speaking to him or still missing. Phoebe hung on by a thread, wasting away while the woman he loved…Jesus.

He stared at back of a seat. “I love her. I love Rose.” Fate couldn’t be this cruel to make him love a woman whose life he ended up helping to destroy after all.

“We’ve been cleared for take-off, Mr. Romanov.” The pilot’s voice came through the intercom.

Sasha glanced out of one of the windows, hoping for some kind of unnatural weather pattern, but all it did was continue to rain.

He sat heavily in one of the numerous seats and fastened his seatbelt, ignoring the football match on the flat screen.

Once they were airborne, a flight attendant strolled through the cabin, the expression on her face inviting and hopeful as she bent over, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Anything you need?” That same hand slid lower, nearing his groin, but he caught it and gently moved it into away.

“Not this time, Taylor.” Not ever. She wasn’t Rose. No woman ever would be.

“I’ll be back with a soda water.” Taylor said, then walked away.

He let his eyes close and put his heartache firmly from his mind.

***

Three days later, Sasha met his uncle at Romanov Industries London offices. He’d always admired this particular building, mostly for its view of the hands-on museum across the street. He’d loved going there as a child with his parents. They would spend the whole day exploring and touching everything in sight. Every child’s dream come true.