The reckless drifter with the crooked grin.
The prince buried under the scars.
And the hunted man who had let her into his bed, maybe without meaning to let her into anything else at all.
Chapter eight
Chapter 8 – The Echo at the Door
The rain had stopped by morning, but the sky was still a dull, bruised steel when Rose parked in the clinic’s gravel lot. The storm’s passing had left everything scrubbed raw and damp—the pines that lined the edge of the property glistened wet, their dark needles dripping onto puddles that mirrored the overcast sky in uneven ripples. She sat behind the wheel for a moment longer than necessary, watching those ripples shiver and spread.
She hadn’t planned to work today.
She hadn’t even planned tomove.
After last night—after everything Victor had told her—her head was still swimming. The weight of that name sat heavy on her tongue.Romanov.The last Tsar’s blood, stubbornly alive in the man who had touched her like she was the only real thing in his world.
It should have scared her more than it did.
But what rattled her more was the way it didn’t scare her enough.
Routine. She needed routine.
So she’d forced herself out of his bed before dawn, pulled on clothes that felt too stiff and clinical after the loose softness of his t-shirt, and driven the empty roads with the windows cracked to let in the cold.
Now she flexed her fingers on the steering wheel, willing them to steady.
She pushed the door open.
The chill slapped her immediately, the ocean wind cutting through her scrubs like a reprimand. The gravel crunched under her sneakers as she walked briskly inside.
The clinic smelled like disinfectant and tired coffee.
She was grateful for it.
Needles and gauze. Blood pressure cuffs. Charting. Sterile things that made sense.
By midmorning she’d settled into the rhythm of it, moving between exam rooms, checking vitals, asking rote questions that didn’t ask anything ofher. She let the quiet beep of the thermometer, the steady hiss of the blood pressure cuff, the muted hum of conversation from the waiting room all sink in like white noise.
She was halfway through logging vitals for an old rancher with a stubborn cough when she heard the call from the front desk.
“Hey, Pepper?”
The receptionist’s voice was calm enough, but there was an edge under it.
Rose paused, glancing up from the chart.
“Yeah?”
“There’s a guy out here asking for a Victor Roman.”
Rose’s spine went cold.
She blinked once, forcing her voice even. “Did he give a last name?”
“No.” A pause. “But he said it like he didn’t need to. Foreign. Accent. Sharp suit. Doesn’t blink enough.”
The blood in her veins felt like it turned to slurry.
