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“Exactly.”
“He’s not a genius. He’s just a ruthless bastard.”
“I’m beginning to see that.” He stands and walks over toward the bedroom window. “I’m in a tough spot, Aria. If I don’t give in to what he wants, he’ll release those photographs.”
“So what? Let him. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know that.” He looks back at me, a rueful smile on his face. “But the public won’t care. I’m in the middle of a high profile merger and things are dicey at best right now. Any whiff of failure and things can go belly up.”
I stand and moved toward him. “I’m so sorry, Ethan. I had no clue.”
“People depend on me. A lot of people. They’re not just my employees. I’m responsible for their jobs, their livelihoods. I feed their children. I can’t just fail them.”
“But if you give in to my father, what then?”
“I don’t know. But he wants you back. That’s what he told The Syndicate, at least.”
I stop a few feet away from him, and I finally understand what he did for me last night. He refused to give me back to my father, saving me from more torture, but in doing so he defied the man with power to destroy him.
More than that, he feels like he risked his entire company for me. He thought I might have been a plant by my father, he didn’t trust me at the time, but he did it anyway.
I feel torn in half by conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I’m incredibly happy that he was willing to stand up to my father for me. It says a lot about the bond that’s building between us, and I know for a fact that it’s real. He must feel the same way, or else he wouldn’t have stepped up the way that he did.
But it also means that I’m a liability. I’m the reason he’s even in this mess. Without me, he’d be better off, and now he knows it. He can’t think about just me and him, he has to think about all of the people that depend on him, and it’s clearly tearing him apart.
I’m a liability. I’m his Achilles heel, at least where my father’s concerned. If he goes down, it’s going to be because of me.
I hate that thought. It almost makes me want to gag and throw up. It send chills down my spine and lodges a huge rock in my gut.
He looks away from me, back out the window. “So now you understand,” he says softly. “Your father is probably watching us right now. Or at least someone that works for your father is waiting for us to slip up so he can get more pictures.”
“I should go back,” I say suddenly, blurting the words out before I can think about them.
He whirls on me. “What?”
“I should go back,” I say. “It’s the best solution. My father can’t keep me, so even if The Syndicate gives me back to him, I’ll just run away again. And right now, I’m a liability for you.”
“No,” he says forcefully. He steps toward me and takes me by the shoulders. “Do you hear me, Aria? I’m never going to give you back to that man.”
I bite my lip. “You can’t keep me from them if they want me,” I say. “They’ll come for me.”
“Let them come,” he says fiercely. “You’re mine, Aria. Do you hear me? You’re mine. They can try to take you.”
I stare into his gorgeous eyes and want to cry. For the first time in my life, I feel like someone values me above other people, and it’s an intense and strange feeling. I don’t know what to say to him, but that doesn’t matter.
Because he pulls me against him and kisses me deeply.
I return the kiss with something like hunger, maybe something like madness. It’s a frenzy and a starving blind and dumb need, and I can’t hold it back. He crushes me in his arms, in his kiss, and I feel held, protected, valued.
Slowly, he breaks the kiss off and steps away from me. “I need time to think,” he says. “I don’t know how I’m going to play this with your father.”
“Whatever I can do to help,” I say.
“Of course.” He grins at me. “Don’t worry. I’ve handled bullies before. I can handle your father.”
I nod, convinced that’s true.
He turns and walks past me and toward the door. I watch him go with something like admiration and something like horror. I’m afraid that if he leaves now, he’ll never come back. But I can’t call out for him. I have to let him go.
He pauses and looks back at me. He smiles and nods, and then leaves the room. I stand there, breathing in and out, and finally collapse onto the couch.
So much happened so fast, and I’m still processing. I don’t know how we got to this point, and it is a point, but it’s one that I don’t entirely understand.
