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“If we walk down the beach, there’s a dock with a few boats. I keep them there just in case we need them,” I told her.
She slipped her cold fingers into mine and we started walking toward the cave entrance.
“Doesn’t it get tiring?” she asked me in a small voice.
“What?” I asked, helping her navigate the uneven ground at the edge of the cave.
“Don’t you get tired of having to think of everything, having to plan for danger that might be around every corner?” she clarified.
I sighed, looking down at her pretty face for a moment, before setting off down the coarse sand of the beach.
“I don’t have a choice,” I said.
“That’s not true,” she said immediately.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Mya…” I started to say.
“It’s not,” she said stubbornly, panting a little as she kept up with my longer strides. “You could choose to stay away from the action, put yourself in a safe location, be a normal man.”
“Normal?” I scoffed and laughed. The sound of my mirth hurt my own ears. It sounded scratchy and uncomfortable, like a hair shirt I wore all the time.
She was silent for a moment. “What if I asked you to make that choice?” she said.
I turned toward her, and she blundered into me. I grasped her shoulders, and she tipped her head up to meet my gaze. She was so small in my arms.
“What did you say?”
She stuck out her chin. “What if I asked you to choose to live a different life, one where we would be free of all of this?”
I scanned her eyes. For the first time in weeks, she didn’t seem to be holding anything back. She was just looking at me, her eyes snapping with emotion.
“How could I do that and keep you safe?” I asked her, my heart aching. I actually wanted to give her this, wanted her to be happy. But how did a Mafia don just go into hiding?
“I don’t know,” she said stubbornly, “but I’m asking you to choose me over this. I want you to prove that you care about me and not this horrible, dangerous life.”
I stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. I didn’t even know how to give her what she was asking for, but I realized that I wanted to figure it out. Finally, I said, “I’ll try and find a way to do that, okay?”
She nodded. “Okay,” she said.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her lips. I meant for it to be chaste, to be tender, but it didn’t stay that way for long.
She moaned into my mouth, leaning into my kiss, her tongue tangling with mine. My hands came up to grip her cheeks, and I leaned down further into her, wanting to lose myself in her softness and her attention.
The sudden sound of shots made us break apart. I looked around wildly, but didn’t see anyone close to us. Maybe they had found the tunnels and the cave.
“Come on,” I said to her, scooping her into my arms and taking off toward the small dock. I hoped that the boats were still there.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mya
My hair was whippingaround my face as the boat raced across the water. Dario’s gaze was trained on the small, dark line of the shore as if he could will the little boat to go faster.
I pressed a hand to my belly. I was going to have to tell him. I had pleaded for him to choose me. Why had I done that? What had come over me?
But I realized that I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to either of us and I hadn’t told him about the baby.
“Getting closer,” Dario said tersely as he changed course a little. “There’s a little dock over here at the edge of town. I should have cell reception again there, and I can call my guys to come and get us.”