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"You weren't even worried if I was okay at the restaurant. You were more concerned about how it made you look as a man," she said, her voice quiet but steady as she leaned further toward his face. "You know why I didn't correct you when you thought I was a Cantil Girl? Because I never wanted to see you look at me the way you did when you pulled me aside tonight. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I wanted you to keep looking at me like I was something different and special to you, but not if that means that you have such a wish for me to be helpless and reliant on you."
“That’s not what I was trying to say,” Renly murmured, but he didn’t struggle in her hold.
“What else could you mean?”
“I just meant that seeing you in that restaurant scared me. I knew you could defend yourself, but in that moment, I didn’t know why you would need any man in your life. If you had that kind of courage and confidence holding that gun, why would you want me around? I saw how you held yourself after you got shot. You were standing like you could take a few more in the shoulder, if you had to, just to make sure I got out safely. How am I supposed to be worth your time if you have everything covered already?”
Mykie sighed and stepped back, letting his arms drop. “You’re worth my time because, despite how you’ve been tonight, you’re good to me. I don’t need you to be my knight in shining armor. I need someone who will support me and recognize that I can take care of myself, but I also want to be taken care of.”
“I want to, Mykie. Ever since I met you, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Neither have Caspar and Corbus, I know it. All I could think about was making sure you were okay, even though Caspar was assuring me that you were fine. We were all worried about you, which is why Caspar told us about what you proposed. That if one of us would have you, we all would. That it was the only way you’ll have any of us. I know you mentioned it to me before, but is that true? It’s all or nothing?”
Mykie looked at the man in front of her. She didn’t know what to think, suddenly. After reflecting so much in the last few days, and her time with Ryker, she had so many questions. Did she really know the men that she thought she was falling for? Was the time they’ve spent together enough to even consider the possibility of a relationship with any of them?
“Yes. All or nothing. Can you handle that? Sharing me and my time with your friends?”
Renly opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand, effectively stopping him. “I don’t want you to give me an answer now. You’ll only give me the answer I want instead of the answer you need to give. The real question I need to ask is whether you can handle that I’m part of the Cantil.”
Renly closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. “I don’t know. I’m still having a problem seeing you as the girl I know and the one I saw that night.”
Mykie stepped forward until they were a few breaths apart. After all the arguing they had done, all she wanted to do was kiss him and shut him up. “The girl I am and the one you knew aren’t so different, Renly. One just has a lot more responsibility to other people than you thought.”
Renly opened his eyes and looked at her. “I’ve heard what the Cantil is like. I’ve heard you say to Caspar and Corbus that they shouldn’t come here without you knowing because they could be in danger. Danger from who?”
She sighed and let herself deflate. This conversation was never going to end, in her eyes.
"Power shifts all the time," Mykie explained vaguely. "The fall-out the night of the restaurant was bigger than we expected, and I don't like the thought of you guys being in the middle of the clean-up."
Renly crossed his arms. “How do I know I can trust you? Now that I know that the Cantil are the ones that are threatening my father, how do I know that I’m not putting my family in danger by even talking to you?”
Mykie shook her head as she took a step back. "I won't lie and tell you that being around me won't put you in tough positions, but believe me when I say that the rumors aren't true, and you can trust me. The Cantil is not as bad as you've heard. Otherwise, you would have been in a lot more danger on our turf."
“Can I ask you a question?”
She nodded.
“Who was really the one in danger? You, or me for being around you?”
"Both," she murmured. "There is more than just the Cantil to worry about. Seedier groups than us, like the Vultures. They wouldn't mind finding a way to get to us by going for someone around us. That's why the Cantil always look out for their own. I bet that even now, if I made the slight indication that I needed help, someone is watching us."
Renly looked up toward Pearl’s and around, seemingly trying to find whoever might be watching them. When he couldn’t find anyone, he settled back on looking at her.
“Who’s to say that my family—my sister, especially—won’t be in danger, if I pursue something with you now?”
Mykie closed her eyes and sighed before leveling her gaze on Renly. “This is why I hesitated to tell you about my history. I never wanted you to worry about being with me. There’s danger that comes with me that I can’t begin to explain, but I’m sick of wasting my time on ‘what ifs’. There will never be a time that being with me will be easy. I have a duty to the Cantil that is important to me. I might come home after a job and be covered in blood. Sometimes I may have to sit in the same room as you and flirt with another man to get information.”
“Who are you to them?”
“I’m important. Almost as important as Chance, but I’m not interchangeable. My position is delicate, and you knowing more about it would only put you more in danger.”
She shook her head. “We probably shouldn’t talk more about this in the open, anyway. It’s up to you to decide where we go. I’ll give you time to think about things without any pressure from me. I will go in first and you can come in whenever you like.”
She turned around and began to walk back around toward the entrance to Pearl's. The line was long, which meant she was going to be in trouble with whoever had taken over her position at the bar.
Suddenly, she felt a hand tug on her arm and she turned quickly.
Renly.
With no other warning, he pulled her close and smashed their lips together, taking any breath she had taken to ask him what he was thinking.
