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This person before me was a stranger.

Perhaps that was his point. My words came out stiff. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m packing. My uncle is sending me away.”

“You’re just going to give up,” he said flatly. “After what your mother has done to Elvira, your father? After what she stole from Abdullah and your uncle?”

His questions grated against my skin. Guilt and shame washed over me.

“Didn’t you hear him?” I asked, not bothering to cover up the bitter taste coating my tongue. “I have no money. None until I wed. What else can I do but go home? I have to see my aunt anyway. And I suppose I could find someone to marry. The son of the consul. Ernesto.” I let out a harsh laugh, wanting to hurt him in the same way he was clearly trying to hurt me. “My mother would approve.”

“Is that what you want to do?” he demanded.

“What else can I do?”

“You can’t marry him.” He lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes. They were bloodshot, tired, and red-rimmed. But when he focused on me again, his blue gaze seared.

“Why not?”

“Because,” he said in a husky whisper, “he won’t kiss you the way I will.”

The ground seemed to shift under my feet. I didn’t understand how he could say something like that to me, but stand so far away. As if that moment in the cave had never happened. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Whit said in that same husky whisper. It drew goosebumps up and down my arms. He walked forward, every step seeming to roar in my ears. He bent his arm and reached for my waist, pulling me flush against the long line of his body. A soft gasp worked its way out of my mouth. Whit dipped his chin, his lips an inch from mine. His breath whispered against my cheek, the smoky scent of whiskey between us.

“Marry me instead.”

EPÍLOGO

Porter looked out onto the Mediterranean Sea, the telegram clenched in his hand. The paper was creased from frequent reading, but still he held on to it as if it were a lifeline. He supposed that it was. His fellow passengers were crowding the deck, every one of them eager for the first sight of Alexandria’s port. He read the short message for the hundredth time.

INEZ FELL FOR IT.

It had been an abysmal crossing. But it didn’t matter anymore.

Whit had kept his word.

And now it was time to collect.