She was as stunning as ever, even with deep shadows under her eyes, her freckled skin wan, and her copper curls thrown up into a sloppy ponytail.
We stared at each other in silence across the living room for too fucking long, and I stood in the doorway, a rare moment of uncertainty overtaking me.
I hated her.
She betrayed me.
She lied to me.
She made me want to be a better man.
Fuck.
Eva lifted her chin, meeting my gaze without flinching. She didn’t invite me in, maintaining my gaze with that blank expression she wore as armor.
Courageous.
Beautiful.
Brave, even facing me now, after what I’d done. “Coach Novikov,” Conrad Jackson said across the room, rough with an emotion I couldn’t name. He was smaller than I remembered—not just thinner, but somehow diminished, like life had worn him down to his essential parts. “You’ve come to check on Eva.”
It wasn’t a question. His eyes darted between his daughter and me, wariness creeping into his features.
Eva hadn’t told him what I’d done to her, or he’d be drawing a weapon to murder me, not greeting me with fear.
“I’ll just?—”
The phone rang. He looked at it then swore, then looked back at me, clearly reluctant to leave me alone with his daughter. Wise man.
“Dad,” Eva interrupted her father softly, never breaking eye contact with me, “I’ll be fine.” She handed her father a thick file, a binder and a bunch of folders. “Would you mind taking this into the kitchen for me?”
Jackson’s hands trembled as he clutched the file, and ugly satisfaction rolled through me. How the mighty had fallen. The man who’d destroyed my career had been reduced to shaking hands and fearful glances.
He took two steps toward the kitchen and dropped everything.
Papers exploded across the hardwood floor—photographs, medical records, carefully organized documents. The binder fell open, revealing color-coded tabs and Eva’s neat handwriting labeling what looked like years of documentation.
Eva started to rise, and a snarl ripped from my throat without permission. “Stay.”
It shouldn’t have delighted me when she flushed and sat back on the couch, drawing a blanket up over her chest. Her automatic obedience sent heat straight to my cock, and I hated myself for it.
Jackson smiled softly as he knelt to pick up the papers. “Eva did an amazing job keeping track of all the paperwork for her surgeries and treatment.”
Of course she had. My perfect submissive, who color-coded her notes during games and pulled a perfect espresso, desperate for me to tell her how much I liked it.
I closed my eyes, trying to block out the memory of her kneeling beside my desk, eager to please even as I used her submission against her. Her submission and her praise kink were honest, and I’d exploited them.
No. I can’t let sympathy soften sixteen years of rage.
As Jackson assembled the fallen papers and photos, his features crumpled at whatever he saw there.
My knee ached with phantom pain, and I couldn’t tell if it was memory or guilt. He picked up page after page of careful notes in Eva’s neat handwriting, interspersed with paper copies of her records—hospital discharge summaries, reports, and bills, so many bills.
Eva said nothing, her gaze darting between the two of us with wide eyes that shone with emotion I couldn’t read.
“She wouldn’t let me help with any of it after she turned sixteen,” Conrad said, his voice whisper soft, not looking at me. “Said she needed to understand everything herself. Just in case.”
In case her alcoholic father couldn’t care for her. In case the desperate deals she made to protect him fell through.