It was a day like any other when Alan finally snapped. Eve told herself that it had most likely only been a matter of time. She told herself she should have seen it coming. And yet she was incredulous as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. There was a bruise on her right cheekbone, and it was getting redder and angrier by the minute.
She had refused him one more time. She didn’t make up any lie or excuse this time. She told him the closest thing to the truth: she needed some time alone. She needed a night to herself. She had pushed him away for the umpteenth time, and Alan had finally snapped.
“WHO IS HE?” he had all but roared.
She told him, again, there was no one.
“STOP LYING TO ME!” Alan had screamed, and he had struck her. A full-on, backhanded slap to her face. Then, he had stormed out of her apartment.
Now, Eve stared at her reflection in the mirror, completely unable to make sense of it. How did she get into this? How could she let things get so out of hand? Tears welled unbidden in her eyes, but she bit her lip and swallowed past the lump in her throat, and she refused to let them fall. She was not going to cry because of the likes of Alan.
One thing was certain, she was never going to let him do this to her again. He would never lay a hand on her again, violently or otherwise. This was it. She was going to leave him. She was going to—
And that’s when she realized, Alan had the keys to her place. The doorman knew him. He had complete access to her building, to her home. To her.
Fear twisted in her belly, and her mind started working frantically, looking for the next step to take. She couldn’t go to her parents. She couldn’t bring herself to tell them what happened. Not only did her father adore Alan, but she had given them enough of a scare when she had disappeared for almost a month.
A thought struck her then. The Diamondbacks. Lind. She would be safe with them. She felt dizzy and nauseous from the nerves at the prospect, but the more she thought about it the more it made sense. If anything, Lind could probably advise her on what to do, how to handle the situation. If he didn’t know about violence, then who else could she go to?
Eve took a deep, calming breath. She needed her wits about her for this. She gave her battered reflection one last look, then she turned off the light to the bathroom mirror. She walked to the living room and picked up her phone from the coffee table. She sat down heavily on the couch, but she sprung back to her feet the minute the beeping sound of the line came to her ear. Before she knew it, she was pacing.
“’lo?”
Eve’s heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t even a full word, but just hearing the sound of Lind’s voice was enough to almost have those tears that she barely had under control overwhelm her. She bit back a sob and took a deep, shaking breath.
“Lind?”
There was a pause. “What?” Another pause. “Who’s this?”
Eve’s heart broke. Could he really not recognize her? “It’s Eve,” she said quietly, incredulous that she even had to clarify. “Eve Robinson.”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line for so long that Eve even pulled the phone away from her ear for a moment and checked whether the connection was still there. It was.
“Lind?” she called again. “Are you there?”
He gave a low chuckle. “Sorta.”
Eve frowned. Something was off. She hadn’t noticed right away due to the wave of emotion at hearing his voice, but something was definitely not right. He didn’t sound like Lind—at least, not like the Lind she had known for that brief, intense month. His voice sounded rough, and not the kind of sexy rough that had been able to send shivers down her spine. It was a ragged sort of rough, the kind of sound that tells you that the person it’s coming from is broken.
“Are you ok?” she asked, her stomach twisting for entirely different reasons than the initial excitement at hearing from him.
“I’m perfect, sweet cheeks.”
He was drawling. Eve checked her watch. It was 2:45 in the afternoon.
“Are you drunk?”
He laughed fully this time, and the sound chilled her to her bones. “Maybe. What’s it to you?” Before Eve could recover from her shock and think of what to say, he went on. “What is it that you need?”
“Some help,” Eve said after a moment’s hesitation. Was he even in any condition to help her, or anyone else—like himself—for that matter?
“With what?”
“Alan. My fiancé. He—”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Lind cut her off abruptly. Despite the use of the word “sweetheart,” his tone was icy. “You’ll have to deal with your relationship issues by yourself. I ain’t no Doctor Phil.”
The next sound Eve heard was that of the call being disconnected. She stood in her living room with the phone still stuck to her ear for quite some time. She was dumbfounded. She was used to other people letting her down, but she never thought Lind would be one of those people.