When Day Breaks(83)

Swanny quickly led Eden to their suite, holding on to her because she was far from steady on her feet. As soon as they were inside, she collapsed on the couch, leaned forward so her elbows rested on her knees and buried her face in her hands.

Silent sobs shook her shoulders, hell, her entire body. She lifted her tear-drenched eyes to his, and it cut out his heart to see her in such distress.

“Why, Swanny? Why? I don’t understand,” she said, her voice cracking under the weight of emotion. “Why would someone want to blow up my car? Who could possibly hate me so much that they’d go to such horrible lengths to kill me? I don’t u-u-understand.”

Her voice broke off and she dropped her face into her hands once more, her shoulders heaving with the force of her sobs.

He went to her. He couldn’t do anything else. A man who didn’t comfort his woman when she needed it the most wasn’t much of a man. She turned blindly to him, clinging to him like a burr, burying her face in his neck, wetting the collar of his shirt with her tears,

“I don’t understand,” she whispered brokenly. “I just don’t understand.”

Swanny sighed because, goddamn it, her father should have been straight with her from the start, and now it was left to Swanny to piece together the entire puzzle so at least Eden could gain some understanding of what was going on around her. Something she should have been aware of from the start. And right now he didn’t give two shits if it pissed her father off and he fired KGI.

Because whether or not KGI was still assigned as her security detail, there was no way in hell he was leaving Eden’s side until the assassin was taken out. Permanently.





CHAPTER 27


SWANNY gathered Eden close in his arms, her face buried in his neck. He rubbed his hands up and down her back, offering her comfort and bracing himself for what he was about to tell her.

He’d do anything at all to spare her this pain, but if it saved her life, if it made her more wary and alert, then he’d lay it out to her as delicately as possible.

He stroked her hair and then gently pulled her away so he could look her in the eyes.

“Listen to me, honey. There’s something—a lot—I need to explain to you. Something that you should have been told from the very beginning, and I’m risking a lot by going against your father’s wishes, but you need to be told . . . the truth.”

Her eyes widened in shock, a glazed look falling over her delicate features.

“My father? The truth? Swanny, I don’t understand. What do you mean my father should have told me the truth? Are you saying he lied to me?”

Distress was a beacon in her eyes radiating to the rest of her body. She looked utterly bewildered, betrayed and devastated. Her lips quivered and tears crowded the corners of her lids, glistening on her eyelashes. God, but he hated what he had to do. Normally it wasn’t something he would do. KGI answered to the party footing the bill, even when they disagreed.

But this was a different situation entirely and he couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow Eden to exist in ignorance a moment longer. Her father be damned. KGI be damned. If it lost him his job, he didn’t give a fuck. All he cared about at this moment was the woman staring at him, sorrow and confusion shining in wounded eyes.

And so he started at the very beginning, telling her everything her father had related to him and his team. She visibly flinched and her hand flew to her mouth as tears gathered and ran down her cheeks when he told her that her mother’s death was an act of vengeance and not an accident.

By the time he finished the entire sordid tale, she was openly sobbing, her shoulders heaving as she tried to gulp back her sounds of anguish.

He felt like the worst sort of bastard for destroying her illusions. For turning her world upside down and for exposing long-held secrets and the endless cycle of revenge.

He stared at her in sorrow, unsure of whether to hold her, try to comfort her, but he didn’t know if she was angry with him. He didn’t know if he should touch her or maintain their current distance, because the moment the ugly story had been spilled, she’d withdrawn, putting space between them, and now she sat, hands fisted in her lap, staring straight ahead sightlessly as tears streamed down her beautiful face.

“Eden,” he said softly, no longer able to bear her agony. He felt it as keenly as if someone had driven a knife right through his heart.

And then his dilemma was solved because she whirled, her face ravaged by grief, and threw herself into his arms, fisting his torn shirt with both hands. She pressed her body as close as she could without him putting her into his lap, so he promptly rectified the matter, dragging her into his arms and wrapping them tightly around her.