Page 167 of Dagger in the Sea

“I know. I will.”

I held out my hand to Alessio, but he quickly pulled me in to his chest and kissed me on both cheeks, the Italian way, the Greek way.“Mio amico.Get it done.”

“Ciao,Alessio.” I thumped his back.

He brought a ringed hand to the side of my face.“Ciao.”

“Turo.”

Alessio and I separated, our heads jerking toward the voice, her voice, and my stomach dropped, clenching. There she stood, in cutoff jean shorts, high leather, brown boots with a peep toe and a deep cut, silk red T-shirt with long beaded necklaces, a small, chocolate brown Birkin bag clutched in her grip.

My goddess.

“Ach,”murmured Alessio, slapping me on the shoulder. He raised his chin at Ciro and they took off.

“Adri, what are you doing here?”

“I had to come. I had to see you one last time.” She swallowed hard as she moved toward me. “Please don’t be mad at me for coming. I know you have to go and do what you need to do, and I want that for you. That’s who you are. I came because I need you to know that you touched my life. You’ve changed me.”

“You did that, Adri. She was right there all the time. You just had to believe in her and let her loose.”

“I love you,” she said.

The world stopped moving. Only my heart thudded in my chest, its heavy beat resounding in my ears.

“I had to come and tell you, I had to—I don’t expect anything in return, but I had to tell you, I—”

I kissed her.

Her beautiful, full, warm lips. Lips that I’d made my own. My hand dug in her beautiful hair and I pressed her into my chest. We were wound together, she and I, coiled around each other like wild vines, tangled like twisted silk ribbons pulled tight. Intricate. No beginning, no end. But it had to end, and I had to let go.

I released her. “You’re in my blood, baby. But right now, I need to take care of business, and you need to be separated from all that. I need to know that it won’t touch you, because I couldn’t handle that. That would fucking kill me.” My voice shook with the truth.

Yes, the fucking truth.

That truth quaked through my veins, had my heartbeat hurtling at a dizzying pace. A cold sweat prickled over my skin.

Her eyes widened. “I want you safe too. I want so much for you—”

My fingers touched her lips, stopping them from continuing, from articulating dreams and hopes and wishes that we both knew might never come true for us.

A cold, brutal, Aegean wind tore between us. Right there in the airport terminal we were on a cliff. Our Andros castle cliff. Her beautiful eyes that choppy, dark blue sea we swam in.

She entwined her fingers with mine and smiled. “We only had a week or so together, but Ifeel, and it’s because of you.”

I feel too, baby.

“And I’m not afraid of it anymore. I’m embracing it, the good, the bad—” She swallowed hard. “I love you.”

Her words squeezed around my heart. She’d changed the water into wine. I tightened my grip on her hand and breathed fire, “I can’t promise you anything right now, Adri. And fanciful promises should never be made to a woman like you with the sea in her eyes and the sun in her heart. You belong here, conquering. Stefanos had promised Natalia he’d be back, and it took him a lot of years to return and he lost her. I can’t—” My throat closed. A low grunt escaped my lips. I was leaving, charging into a firestorm I might not survive.

I didn’t want to lose her to another man or to death.So fucking selfish.“I can’t hold you to a promise I can’t fulfill,” I continued, the words a jagged knife shearing through my gut. “No matter how much I want to make that promise to you right now.”

“You’re going to war, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

She wiped the hair back from my face and kissed me, my mouth filling with her taste, our tongues tangling, devouring. My body would never be the same again, would never know this desire again. Adri resided inside me. Her passionate kisses, her touch, bold and sweet, trusting and daring, had awakened me to a new world.

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