The thought made her heart beat wildly. It was the last thing she wanted, but maybe, just maybe, she could get lucky and it wouldn't happen. If it did... She drew a swift breath, unable to imagine a scenario that was so far out of left field for her.
Fingers fumbling in her haste, she unfastened her seat belt. She still felt damp, gritty and disoriented that the night had spun so far out of control that they'd actually had sex and, in the end, because the condom had come off, unprotected sex. She couldn't wait to say goodbye and escape into the quiet refuge of her home. "Thanks," she said brightly, throwing the car door open.
It was still raining. No problem, since she was already bedraggled and her dress was most likely ruined. Cheeks burning, she searched for her clutch, which had somehow managed to slide down the side of the seat. By the time she had retrieved it, Kyle was out of the car and it was too late to make a quick getaway.
Rain was cold on her bare arms as she jogged to her front door and searched for her key. Intensely aware of Kyle beside her, she jammed the key in the lock and somehow missed.
Kyle calmly took the key from her and unlocked the door. As he pushed it wide, the tinkle of glass made her freeze in place.
"Wait here," he said softly. Kyle stepped past her, flowing into the darkened interior.
A chill went down her spine at the quiet way he'd moved, his utter assurance, and despite her dilemma over whether or not to just give in and marry him, she was abruptly glad he was with her. Burglaries were common, but this was the first time it had happened to her.
Long minutes later, lights went on and Kyle reappeared in her tiny hallway. "I'll call the police. Whoever it was, they're gone now, out through the laundry door and over the back fence. The sound of breaking glass was a vase. They knocked it over on their way out."
Eva followed Kyle into her lounge. Drawers had been pulled out and emptied onto the floor. Her one framed family photo of her mother and father in happier days was sitting on the dining table, as if whoever had broken in had paused to look at it. Immediately, suspicion flared. Her last stepfather, Sheldon Ferris, had once tried to get money out of her, but Mario had threatened him with the police.
As she checked around the sitting room, she noted that her TV and stereo were still in place, but her laptop was gone.
Kyle terminated the call he'd just made. "A cruiser will be here in the next ten minutes." He frowned. "Did you set the alarm?"
"Before I left. I always do."
While Kyle checked her alarm system, she stepped into her bedroom. Her shocked disbelief was swamped by burning outrage. If her lounge was a mess, her bedroom was worse. Her closet and every drawer had been emptied. Clothes had been dumped on the floor with hangers still attached. Shoes, makeup and costume jewelry were scattered over the bed and the floor. She picked up lacy scraps of underwear and jammed them back in their drawer. She knew she shouldn't touch anything, because the police needed to see the scene of the crime, but she drew the line at having uniformed police officers claiming her underwear as evidence.
Until that moment, she had thought a burglary was about the scariness of a stranger, losing stuff and the inconvenience of insurance claims, but she knew now that wasn't so at all. Shock and anger that someone had thought they had the right to invade her privacy and rummage through her private things kept running through her in waves. They had tossed items aside and taken what they wanted as if she didn't matter.
She didn't know what was missing other than her laptop, but suddenly the laptop ceased to matter. A chill went through her, and she found herself rubbing her arms. Her home, her sanctuary and all of the personal things that were about her had been violated.
Kyle, who had been quietly checking through rooms, reappeared and looked annoyed when she told him the laptop was gone. "Anything else appear to be missing?"
She skimmed the room and tried to think, although when her gaze snagged on a broken music box, a precious keepsake from her childhood, her temper soared again. If it was Sheldon, a one-time used car salesman and inveterate swindler, he would know how precious that music box was to her. "It's a little hard to say with all the mess."
His gaze was cool and very steady as he noted the damage. "Made any enemies lately?"
She frowned. "I haven't had time. I work too hard."
"What about in business?"
"I deal with hotel groups and caterers. All they want from me is a confirmed date and a check, which they get."
She heard a car pull into her driveway. Trying to keep her emotions in check, Eva looked through the rooms of her house, relieved to see that the burglar hadn't managed to get to her spare room or the kitchen. Minutes later, she opened the front door for two police officers.
Absently, she noticed that the fresh-faced detectives who introduced themselves as Hicks and Braithewaite seemed dazzled, making her aware that her damp dress was clinging and her hair was tousled. It was a reaction she'd gotten used to over the years, and which she usually managed to ignore.
As Hicks flashed his ID, Kyle stepped into the hall, his hand settling in the small of her back. The small proprietorial touch in front of Hicks forcibly brought back the passionate interlude on the beach. But, given her shakiness over the break-in, she didn't mind the context. Messena and Atraeus men were naturally protective of the women in the family. Whether it was an elderly aunt or someone much younger, the small courtesies and the masculine backup were always available if there was a problem.
Kyle kept her close as Hicks asked questions and looked around. When they walked through the rooms, he even threaded his fingers with hers. They had made love, that was intimate enough, but Kyle's possessive behavior had shunted them straight into something scarily close to couplehood.
Eva's stomach lurched as, once again, she turned over her options: marriage or stay single and possibly lose her business and house, both of which were mortgaged. She faced losing everything for which she had worked so hard over the years. She would survive; she didn't have to have the silk cushion. What would hurt, though, with Mario gone and no inheritance until she was forty, was the feeling of alienation that would go with losing that essential link. Maybe that was a ridiculous way to feel, since she was still an Atraeus by name. But it was a fact that she had always had to strive to fit in, to feel good enough to be an Atraeus.
Whichever way she viewed the future, she kept coming up against one constant: she did not want to cut Kyle out of it. That meant marriage.
She drew a quick breath at a heated flash of their lovemaking. And if what had happened tonight was anything to go on, if they married, even if they started out as a paper marriage, she didn't think it would stay that way.
After taking photographs, Hicks asked a few straightforward questions and made arrangements for an evidence tech to call in and dust for prints in the morning. Eva gave him a description of the laptop and a serial number, and promised to call in to Auckland Central Police Station with a list of anything else that was missing.
She decided against telling him right away about her suspicion that the perpetrator could have been Ferris. If it was, and he had left prints, the police would soon know, anyway, and that meant she got to hold on to her privacy. Mario had been the only member of the family who had known the whole sad and sordid truth about her past, and she preferred to keep it that way.
If Ferris had broken in, his motive would likely be the same as last time. He wanted money, and he wasn't averse to using blackmail to get it. Now that she was quite well known, thanks to her modeling career, he would no doubt threaten to release the details of her disorder and her past to the press.
After closing the door on the detectives, she walked through to the sitting room, where Kyle was examining the photo of her parents where it lay on the table. "Your mother and father?"
"Before they split up." Before her twin had died. Before her father, after finding out about the disorder, had left for Australia and a new life. And before her mother had remarried twice, having children who died to other men who left. Before Eva had discovered that she carried the same rare gene as her mother, a disorder that was lethal for fifty percent of children born to a carrier. In Eva's mother's case, the odds had turned out to be even worse, because out of four children, Eva had been the only one who had survived.