But I didn’t want to go. Not yet.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“N-N-NO! You don’t apologize to me! I shotyou. D-don’t you dare die on me!”
“Already halfway there, darling.”
“Stop joking! Stupid, stoic, BRITISH idiot!”
I smiled. Damn but I loved this woman.
Agony flared. I choked.
Chiara clutched my head with both hands. Her warm mouth moved over mine, breath mingling.
She kissed me. A soft pressing kiss. Another. And another.
I wanted to stay. I desperately did. But . . . I wasn’t strong enough. Weakness pulsed through me. My hold on my body slipped.
Darkness descended.
TWENTY-THREE
Chiara
Ilost it.
“JACK!” I screamed his name.
I had shot him in the side of his chest. Jack. He was lying here bleeding because of me.
Me. I had done this.
I was trying to shoot the shadowy figure with the gun, but then Jack had to go all superhero complex and jump between us. He had distracted the gunman but landed in the path of my bullet.
I slapped his face, trying to get him to come back to me.
“JACK! NO!”
My earlier vision flooded my mind. Jack’s lifeless eyes. The pool of red blood around him.
Iwas the reason Jack would die.
A hand pulled me back. I fought.
“Ma’am! You need to stand back.”
Another hand joined the first and lifted me away from Jack, holding both of my elbows now.
I screamed and sobbed. “NO! JACK! NO!”
Jack lay unnervingly still on the ground, his profile illuminated by the headlights of several cars, sopping wet in all his nineteenth century finery. Eyes closed, face ashen.
My body sagged against whoever was holding me.
I shook my head, refusing to accept that I would lose Jack this way. I pulled again on my arms, desperate to touch Jack.
“No.” My voice a whisper.
