He drew up short and stared at me. “It’s not worth the risk, not worth putting your life in jeopardy.”
&nb
sp; “Yes, it is.” I stood and crossed to him. My palms splayed over his hard pectoral ledge and I gazed up at him unwaveringly. “I’m one person, when countless others suffer because of what the society has been allowed to get away with. You could have died. Amano, too. Easing up on them now is not the answer.”
“And what about Kyle? His life is in danger, too, Ari. Now that they know about him.”
My hands dropped to my sides. “I asked him to reconsider. To disassociate himself from me. Go back to his safe life.”
With a grunt, Dane said, “Let me guess. He told you not a chance in hell.”
“Pretty much.”
“Fool,” Dane hissed out. Then he whirled around, stalked over to the sliding glass doors, and glared out at the waterfall. “I should have never hired him at the hotel. Goddamn it.”
“Maybe, but that was my fault, remember?”
“And how the hell would you ever look me in the eye again if anything happened to him? How would you ever forgive me?” he quietly demanded.
I really hadn’t considered all of this. It’d been such a roller-coaster ride for us all, so many ups and downs, that I tried to catch my breath before the next potentially devastating hurdle came our way, not really giving such deep thought to the consequences of our actions.
“I can tell him to leave,” I said. “I can tell him we’re not friends anymore, that I don’t need him or want him around. He won’t buy it, though. He’ll stick, Dane. He’s already proven that.”
“So I’m supposed to accept what might happen to him as his choice? The way I’m supposed to accept the same with you?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t like the implication of that one word for Kyle, myself, or our baby. But given the circumstances—the real and impossible-to-hide-from reality of the situation—and the fact that Dane, Amano, Kyle, and I had committed to that reality and knew what we were in for … I’d be a hypocrite to say the blame for anything going awry landed anywhere other than at the feet of those who chose this path. That meant all of us. Kyle and me included.
Unfortunately, the baby didn’t have a say in the matter. And no, I certainly never intended to be careless with my life, thereby putting our child’s life in danger. But this had started long before I became pregnant—long before I’d learned I was pregnant. It wasn’t something I could extricate myself from now that I did know.
This was about our family. Other people as well. There were a lot of lives at risk, so much at stake, if we didn’t continue on this path. More so than if we put a halt to this in an effort to save ourselves.
I joined Dane at the doors and wrapped my arms around his waist. “There’s no turning back, because this is what needs to be done. You said yourself that this is bigger than what happened at the Lux—one of the world’s premier luxury hotels. That’s a huge statement. Yet, Dane … Though you won’t be able to forgive yourself if anything happens to me, you won’t be able to forgive yourself, either, if you give up on this in an attempt to keep me out of harm’s way.”
His hands covered mine and he squeezed them.
I continued. “That day when you almost killed Vale … You had every right to be furious, and I know it wasn’t just about the secret society. It was about me. That he’d hurt me. You were completely enraged. Then you tried to convince me you weren’t the bad guy. I had to walk away from you because everything surrounding you was too dark, too dangerous, too sinister. But it’s never been your fault. That was why I came back. Because I realized you were right. You’re not the bad guy.”
He released my hands and turned to face me. Brushing strands of hair from my cheek, he said, “The worst part about this is that I want you too much—need you too much—to do what you did with Kyle. To tell you to leave.”
“Doesn’t matter. You could tell me. I won’t go. I lost you the first time after Vale and it was pure torture. When I thought you were dead…?” Tears pricked my eyes. “I honestly had to find something to live for—a reason to not want to be dead myself. Everything about our life together was—is—that reason, Dane.”
His emerald eyes clouded. His jaw set in a hard line. “I don’t know if I could do it, Ari. If the tables were turned. I don’t know if I could find a reason to—”
“You would,” I interjected. “But you won’t have to, because I’m going to be just fine. I’m going to stay here and not venture out without Amano or Kyle. I will do everything I have to in order to be safe. You have to trust in that. And trust Kyle the way you do Amano. He’s been strong and loyal. He’s committed to being by my side.”
“A little too much,” Dane said in a dour tone. Then added, “But you’re right. And I do trust him. Believe me, he’d need stitches if I thought he’d purposely put you in a hazardous situation.”
“He didn’t. It was a trap, Dane. And I was very, very lucky he was there with me to help me out of it.”
Dane pulled me close. “You must have been so scared.”
“Petrified.” I shuddered at the thought of those hairpin turns and the helicopter looming on the horizon. But I said, “We might not come up with the savviest or classiest ways out of a mess—the way you would—but we manage.”
“Drunk and disorderly conduct,” he said with a half snort. “My wife, the town rowdy. I’ll have to do something about burying your mug shot before it hits the Internet.”
“Kyle’s, too.”