Ethan smiled at her. Noah caught the flash of his grin. “I love it when you beg me.” Then he kissed her.
Noah leapt forward.
A gunshot blasted.
Noah’s entire world stopped then.
Claire staggered back from Ethan.
“But you’re begging for him,” Ethan shouted at her. “For his life, and you know what that tells me?” He lifted his gun, preparing to shoot it again. Preparing to shoot Claire again.
Claire’s blood was dripping onto the boat.
A roaring filled Noah’s ears. He didn’t even realize that he was the one making that sound.
“It tells me that you love him!” Ethan fired again.
Noah shoved Claire to the side. The bullet drove into Noah’s shoulder, but he didn’t even feel the impact. He was too busy holding Claire.
There was blood on her shirt. The bastard had shot her, at point blank range. The bullet had sank into Claire’s stomach, and she stared up at Noah as tears poured down her face. “L-love…s-sorry…”
“No, Claire, you’re okay,” he told her, frantic. “You’re okay!”
“No, she’s not,” Ethan snapped. “You’re both dead. And you’re in just the position I like. On your knees.” His laughter grated in Noah’s ears. “Look up at me, asshole. The last thing I want Claire to see is you dying.”
Carefully, oh, so carefully, Noah eased Claire down on the deck. “I love you,” he whispered. Did she realize just how much? That she was his whole world?
That world was bleeding out in front of him.
He looked up. “I told you what would happen if you ever came near Claire again.”
Ethan advanced on him. His fingers gripped the gun tightly. “I’m the one with the power here. Claire should’ve been true to me! You ruined everything! Now you are going to die!”
Noah shook his head. “I told you to forget Claire. And I told you that if you didn’t…” Noah lunged up. With his left hand, he grabbed Ethan’s hand-the hand that held gun—and he broke the man’s wrist. “I said you’d be a dead man.” Noah’s right hand drove his knife into Ethan’s chest. Right into the bastard’s heart.
Ethan’s breath choked out. He stared at Noah with wide, stunned eyes. “Pl-please…”
Noah twisted that knife. “You’ll never hurt her again.” He yanked the knife back.
Blood poured from Ethan’s wound. The man fell back. And, furious, snarling, Noah, plunged the knife into Ethan’s throat.
Go join your bastard father and brother in hell.
Then Noah spun around. He fell to his knees beside Claire. “Baby, baby, look at me.”
Her eyes had closed. When he touched her, Claire’s skin was so cold.
“Don’t do this, Claire. Please, please don’t leave me.” He was begging her, and he didn’t care. Noah would have done anything for Claire right then.
Her lashes lifted. Her eyes—the blue seemed so dim—met his. “Love…y-you…”
He pushed down on her stomach, trying to apply pressure to her wound. “Fight for me. You love me, so that means you have to fight.” He kissed her, desperate, breaking. “Fight to stay with me. Because I don’t want to be without you, Claire. I don’t think I can be. Please, baby, hold on.”
He lifted his head. Her lips started to curl. The smile that began with her bottom lip.
“Changed…me…” she whispered.
The smile wasn’t flashing her dimples. It wasn’t reaching her eyes. It had to reach her eyes.
“I was…yours…”
“You still are.” He grabbed for the boat’s radio. Called for help even as he kept applying pressure to her wound. “And I’m yours. Yours—always. Do you hear me, Claire? Always. This isn’t the end for us. We’ve just started. We’re getting married. I’m going to buy you so many blue diamonds that you get sick of them, and I’m going to make you scream over and over again when you and I are in bed and I make—”
Her eyes had closed once more.
“Claire?” No, no. “Get me help!” he yelled into the radio. “She needs a helicopter! I need a life flight for her. Dammit, I’m out on the water and I need—”
Claire.
His hand was on her wound. She was terrifyingly still on that deck. The water was all around him, blue for miles. No help in sight.
If they stayed there and waited for help to come, Claire would be dead.
“Live for me,” he begged her. “Please, God, Claire, live for me.”
He lifted her up, holding her as best he could even while he kept trying to put pressure on that wound. His left arm wrapped around her, and she hung limply against him.
His mother had been limp like that. So long ago. He’d thought that she’d just passed out. But…
Still holding her, Noah sent the boat racing forward. It bounced against the waves at first, then cut through the water.
He kept holding Claire.
He’d always hold her.
Because she was the only thing that mattered to him.
“Please hold on, Claire,” he said, and he knew he was begging her. “Just…hold on. Don’t leave me.”