He shook his head. “No, they didn’t. Your future’s standing right in front of you. They didn’t take anything from you. Nothing. Because you’re too strong. You hold it all tight inside of you, where they can’t get any of it.”
“I was part of a tradition…” Her eyes begged him to understand, to recognize all that had been stolen from her, and his heart broke all over again. “One that ended with me.”
“We’ll start a new tradition. One that we can pass down to our kids.”
Her hand fluttered to her throat. “I can still feel it there.”
“I swear, it’s gone. You got it off, and you’ll never see it again.”
“Feel so dirty,” she mumbled, mostly to herself.
“Don’t you feel me washing it all away, Rachel?” He ran the cloth down her back and over her hip. “Concentrate on how it feels. Can you smell the shower gel? It’s like flowers in the spring. Daffodils. Take a deep breath; let it fill you. It smells good, doesn’t it? Fresh. New. Do you feel my touch, Rachel? My touch. Not theirs. Not anyone else’s. It’s just you and me here. Concentrate on that. On me washing all the memories away for you.”
He added more soap to the cloth before making sure he wiped it over every inch of her. Head to toe. “When we get out of here, all the bad memories will be gone. Everything will be clean and fresh and new. But underneath it all, there will still be you. The you nobody can change or damage because you’re strong and smart, and so courageous that you scare me half to death. All the rest of it, what they did, that’s just on the surface, and we’re washing it away. All that will be left is Rachel. The amazing, difficult, gorgeous woman I love so damn much.”
She pressed her forehead to his chest, her fingers curling into his hips as she cried herself raw. “Michael,” was all she said.
“Yeah, I’m your Michael.” He kissed her head before rinsing away the soapsuds and wrapping her in a thick white towel.
Once he’d dried her off, he carried her to the bed, where he climbed in and sat with his back against the headboard, Rachel cradled in his lap. He shut off the lights with the remote and held her close, protecting her in his arms as she cried herself to sleep.
A creak from the hallway had Harvard’s head snapping to the open door. Elle appeared, giving him a sad little smile. It was clear she’d been crying, which meant Harry must have let the team into the apartment. They would have found the evidence and realized what had taken place.
Harvard held up a hand and signaled that Rachel was asleep.
“We’ve cleaned up,” Elle whispered. “The rug’s ruined, so we’ve taken it out of the apartment. Harry and I have the thumb drive, and we’ll go through the video in detail. Hopefully, it will give us more to go on than the photos did.” She looked on Rachel with love and pity, and Harvard was glad she wasn’t awake to see it. “What do you want us to do with the necklace?”
He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”
“I’ll bag it up and put it in the safe at Benson Security; that way, Rachel can deal with it when she’s ready.” She grimaced. “If ever.”
Harvard nodded as he stroked the hair of the woman who’d become his life.
Elle watched him, her lips trembling. “We’ll lock up. You’ll call if you need us?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Go find something for me, Elle. Some direction to point me in, so I can take these bastards out.”
“You’ve got it,” she promised before disappearing.
“It’s going to be okay,” Harvard whispered to a sleeping Rachel. “We’ll get them.”
If it was the last thing he did, he’d hunt down the people tormenting Rachel and wipe them off the face of the earth.
For her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When Rachel opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Harvard sitting in the armchair facing her bed. He was decadence personified, wearing nothing but a pair of faded blue jeans that rode his hips, the top button undone. His knees spread, and his hands resting on the arms of the chair, he stared straight at her.
For a few minutes, they stayed like that, quietly watching one another. Her gaze caressed the planes and curves of his body, taking in the strength in his shoulders and the definition in his abs. The soft light from the pool made him seem as though he’d been staged for a fashion photoshoot. The kind where they bring in rugby players to give the clothes an edge.
“Is your father still handsome?” Rachel asked hesitantly, reluctant to break the peace of their silence.
His full lips quirked. “Don’t think I’m the best judge of that.”
“I bet he is. Genetics like yours don’t just pop up out of nowhere, and you’re definitely the type of man whose good looks will only get better with age.”
“Guess you’ll have to stick around to see if your theory proves true.”
She licked her lips, detecting the faint aftertaste of mint but unable to recall when she’d brushed her teeth. “I’m considering it.”
“Anything I can do to help sway the decision in my favor?”
“That depends; is it in your favor to spend the rest of your life with or without me?”
His eyes darkened. “Definitely in my favor to have forever with you. Is that what we’re talking about, Rachel? Forever?”
While she’d never found the American accent particularly attractive, she couldn’t imagine Harvard sounding any other way. That rumbling depth, rolling over those soft vowels, was something she’d never grow tired of listening to.
“Why don’t you have a pet name for me?” she asked. “Callum calls Isobel his wee darling. Dimitri calls Megan Buffy. And Joe calls Julia baby.”
His smile was so potently sexy that she was sure she could become pregnant just by looking at it. “You want me to call you baby?”
“Do I look like a child?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He turned serious. “You don’t have a pet name because, as far as I’m concerned, your given name is a term of endearment. Can’t you hear what I feel for you every time I say it? I’m telling you how much you mean to me every time your name passes my lips.”
Her heart swelled at the words, and she stilled. For the first time in as long as she could remember, her heart didn’t feel constrained. The chains had been removed by the man watching her so intently. He’d broken each and every link with his slow, systematic persistence.
Rachel no longer wanted the distance between them, but when she threw back the covers, she was mildly surprised. “I’m naked,” she said as the air hit her skin.
“Mmm, so you are.”
His eyes caressed her as she walked the short distance between them. Once there, she climbed onto his lap and straddled him, flattening her hands on his chest. His skin was soft and smooth, his muscle firm and warm, his scent familiar—the ocean on a summer’s day.
“I don’t want to talk about what happened earlier,” she said.
“I figured.” His right hand rested on the curve of her hip, his thumb caressing.