Stefano nodded toward the door, and Geno’s cousins reluctantly left the room. His brothers ignored the order or just didn’t believe Stefano meant them. Amaranthe refused to believe it, either. She stayed stubbornly close. Stefano took her wrist, his fingers a firm shackle, gentle but unbreakable.
“Let’s go sit over here, Amara.” He indicated the chairs she had barely registered as they’d entered the room.
She went with him because he gave her no choice, and she didn’t want to make a fuss while the doctor worked on Geno. Salvatore and Lucca remained close, standing up against the wall, but where they could see their brother and everything being done for him. She envied them.
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. Hejust 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 leftout 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 anelite. 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.
“Danzatrice Ombra. Where are you? Why is it every time I open my eyes, you aren’t where you’re supposed to be?”
He sat up slowly. Every muscle in his body hurt, especially his chest. He rubbed his palm over it as he looked around. His gaze collided with Amaranthe’s. Her dark gaze stared directly into his, holding everything he could possibly want to see, robbing him of his breath before she managed to hide the yearning in her eyes.
“I’m right here, doing exactly what the doctor told me to do. Why is it the moment I move, you wake up?” she asked him.
Her expression was soft, concerned. That face of hers,the perfect oval, skin inviting his touch. Still, she was upset with him and despite that loving look, he knew he was in trouble with her. Each time he woke, there was that distance she put between them.
“When I can’t feel you against me, the nightmares start,” he admitted. “I’d like to think it’s a side effect of the poison, but more likely, I just need you next to me.” He patted the mattress beside him. “Come here, Amara.”
She sighed. “I’m still trying to come to terms with your insistence on placing your life in jeopardy. Once I can manage that, I’ll be able to be in bed with you without staring at the ceiling with my heart pounding and wanting to cry my eyes out.”
“Amaranthe.” He said her name as gently as possible because, although she tried to sound valiant, she sounded lost and alone. “Come here.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. You scared me.”
“You would have died.”
“Youdiddie. I watched you die, Geno. Right in front of me, you died. One minute you were there and the next I was completely alone. I had no idea what that was going to feel like, without you in the world.”
She shook her head again, looking so forlorn it tore at him, his heart feeling more battered by that look than by whatever they had done to revive him, and they’d been very enthusiastic about pounding on his chest—at least it felt that way.
