It finally dawned on him. He bought his freedom with hers.
“I never meant for it to happen.”
She faced him. “I hope that you truly love me. I hope it hurts.”
“It does. I had no idea it could hurt this much.”
She snapped her wrist brace open, sank to the floor, and let her weapon slide from her hand. “Go away, Celino.”
“I can’t. If I could rip out my heart and give it to you to make you happy, I would. I’m not a good man. I’m a coldblooded, brutal, terrible bastard. But I feel human when you’re near me and I know you feel at peace in my presence. Be with me, Meli. I swear I will do everything in my power to make you happy. I will protect you. I will be your sheltered harbor. You will never have to hide from me.”
She shook her head in apathy. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know that you think Magyar’s Revenge started slow but finished well and you consider me a fool for not forcing myself to read past the beginning chapter. I know that you don’t lack in patience and that you consistently forget that the constant of standard return on the planet is 4.58, not 4.56. That’s why all your calculations differed from mine on the breakdown of Parson Takeover.”
It had taken him eight hours to reach Dahlia and he had taken a booster shot to keep himself awake so he could memorize her notes.
She glanced at him. “You hacked the Galdes database. I thought those files were destroyed.”
“I did and they aren’t. I know the details of every assassination you have ever done. They requested sixteen of you and you did eleven, all of which were retaliations for violence done to your family. I think the risks you took with Garcia were idiotic.” He knelt by her. “I also kidnapped your father and your brothers. I would’ve tortured them if I thought they knew where you were.”
She laughed softly, but without humor. “That is an odd way to endear yourself to me.”
“I never claimed to be kind or virtuous. But for you, I will be.” He swept her into his arms, holding her back against his chest, wrapping her with his body. She jerked away from him, but her advantage lay in precision, not in strength, and he restrained her with laughable ease. “I love you, Meli. I didn’t love you when you were sixteen, but I love you now. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ruined your life. But I will help you build a new one. Be with me.”
“Let me go.”
He growled his frustration. “You’re sentencing us both to misery. In the name of what, Meli? Haven’t you been miserable enough? Wouldn’t a more fitting punishment be sentencing me to a lifetime of making you happy?”
“Let me go, Celino.”
“I can’t,” he whispered and kissed her hair.
He couldn’t force her. He couldn’t bind her to himself if she didn’t want him. His muscles tensed. He went rigid, fighting against a sharp physical need to hold her, snarled, and finally opened his arms. She rose. “I have lived with this for over a decade. You broke me, Celino. You stole my future and my family treated me like a leper. I had excised myself to escape their pity. You can’t fix it with one night of reading through my old thoughts.”
He watched her walk away and felt his heart shatter for the second time.
In the morning, Celino Carvanna retired.
***
Celino sat on the second-story wrap-around balcony on a large lounger couch. A reader lay in his hand. A frosted glass of tea rested next to him. Below him dahlias bloomed. Two years had passed, but he still felt a sharp spike of pain when he looked at them. They reminded him of her. He forced himself to glance at them once in a while. Perhaps he had become masochistic, he wondered, raising his gaze.
Meli stood among the flowers.
She wore a simple sun dress of vivid red. She had cut her hair. Short and layered, it framed her face in a light cloud.
She had bypassed his guards. It didn’t surprise him.
Meli crossed to the house and took the stairs up to the balcony. When she finally sat in a chair next to him, tucking her feet under her, and he caught a slight scent of citrus from her hair, he decided she was real.
“I should’ve never let them do it to me,” she said. “Even at ten, I should have known better. I should’ve never dedicated myself to becoming an accessory to you.”
“You did what any child would have done. Your parents suggested it, encouraged it, and praised you when you excelled at it. The responsibility is theirs and mine. Unfortunately, I turned out to be a self-absorbed arrogant ass**le,” he said. “Both times.”
“The Carvanna finances are suffering. They are threatening to excise you, because you refuse to rescue them from themselves.”
He wondered how she had found out that bit of highly guarded information. “They also demand that I turn over my personal funds to the family to bail them out. They won’t excise me. They’re too attached to the possibility that I might change my mind and return from retirement.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Will you?”
He shook his head. “‘I’ve lost the taste for it.”
“You lie. I’ve read the INSA file.”
He grimaced. “It takes a special kind of worm to attempt a hostile takeover of a hospital network run by a charity. Even at my worst, I wasn’t that heartless. It was a one-time pro-bono rescue.”
A little light danced in her eyes. “And Vinderra Wineries?”
“They were going under and I’ve always enjoyed their wine. Alfonso was taken in by an unscrupulous accountant. It was simply the matter of professional pride.”
“And the fact that he has six children had absolutely nothing to do with your involvement?”
“Precisely.”
“And the Arid Foundation account?”
“It was a pleasant diversion. I was bored.”
“Your family is quite serious, you know.”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t care less.”
They sat in silence.
A cynical thought occurred to him. “Did my family pay you to force me from my retirement?”
“No. I doubt I could.” She smiled at him, and Celino felt his throat close. “You enjoy being the caped crusader of the financial world entirely too much.”
“I’ve served the family long enough. What I do now is my own affair.”
She laughed. “That look was pure Celino. You almost never look like that anymore.”
“You’ve been watching me?”
She nodded and pointed to the east. “I live over there. I bought Nicola’s orchard.”