Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 126060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Stefano waited until she was seated and had turned her attention to him before he spoke again. “I saw the expression on your face when I told you he isn’t being careless with his life anymore. There is no death wish. He looked at the difference in body weight, yours versus his, and calculated the odds fast. He knew if you absorbed the poison and it was deadly, you would die. He had good odds of survival. In both cases, he had you and other shadow riders close, and he counted on all of us to keep him alive. The odds were in his favor. They weren’t in yours.”
She couldn’t argue with his logic. It was the truth. She would have come to that same conclusion. “He’s so casual and deliberate about it. I don’t know how else to put it. He just steps in and takes control. He’s strong and I don’t have a chance of stopping him because I have no idea he’s going to take the hit until he’s already done it.”
“Are you blaming yourself for this?” Stefano indicated his cousin.
“The Australian was mine to bring in. I triggered him. I thought I was being careful, but I lost him.” She raised anguished eyes to him. Guilt washed over her, and she turned to look at Geno lying so still and gray under his beautiful olive skin. “Worse, I was certain he’d keep the knife in his hand—that he’d come at me with it. I was prepared to block his attack, but he threw it instead. Geno somehow realized he was going to throw it and he stepped between us.”
“Amaranthe.” Stefano said her name gently, trying to absolve her of guilt when it wasn’t possible.
“Don’t. He was my job. I’d studied the way the others were stabbed. In every case they’d been struck repeatedly by the same blade. He’d come to the engagement party to assassinate you. I misjudged that he would kill you the same way the others had all been murdered.”
“You don’t know that wasn’t his intention,” Stefano pointed out. “You weren’t his intended target. I was. You aren’t thinking clearly because you’re emotional. You’ve never experienced extreme emotion, have you, Amara?”
She pressed her lips together and once more looked at Geno, willing him to respond to the doctor’s care. Very slowly, she shook her head. “No. I lost my parents when I was barely four. After that, I was never really allowed to be attached to anyone. I threw myself into training and dance. I lived for those two things, not relationships.”
“I imagine Jean-Claude ensured you had the best instructors he could find for you,” Stefano said. “He said he’s always been proud of you.”
Amaranthe frowned. “He spoke of me to you?”
“Not until I sent him an inquiry to make certain Geno wasn’t being played. Then he had quite a lot to say.” He glanced across the room and indicated Salvatore. “He left out a few things he should have told me. He’ll hear about it. The bottom line to take away from this is to not beat yourself up. You’re in unfamiliar territory. Falling in love. Learning about relationships. Having a man that insists and will always insist on standing in front of you when it comes to danger.”
“I’m a shadow rider, Stefano,” she reminded. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m an elite. He can’t be stepping in to save me every time he thinks my life is threatened.”
“You blew your chance at cover in front of the entire family when you saved my life, Amara. You were far too fast, you, Salvatore and Geno, all three of you, but you especially. No one even considered that you were a rider, and then you blew their socks off with that little performance. And your man is never going to be any different. It doesn’t matter how good you are as a rider, you’re his life. His center. His reason for existing. How do I know? Because Francesca is mine. If I lost her, I wouldn’t have much of a reason to continue. Geno feels the same. You’re it for him. He isn’t going to change. If you want to share his life, you need to love every part of him. That’s the biggest part of who he is.”
Amaranthe already knew what Stefano was telling her. She was just so afraid of losing Geno to that side of him. She was a rider, and she would never be able to be anything but who she was. She couldn’t accept being responsible for his death. They would have to find a way to compromise because she wasn’t about to lose him over their personality traits.
CHAPTER NINE
Geno woke with a hell of a headache, his heart pounding and a bad taste in his mouth. It wasn’t the first time he had woken like that and he was fairly certain it wouldn’t be the last. He knew he was home in his own bed, but already his hand was searching for her.