“I’ll go.” Cam blamed himself. If only he had turned Ria in immediately upon discovering her identity. If only she weren’t so beautiful and perfect for him. If only he hadn’t fallen in love at first sight. If, if, if didn’t do him any good since he couldn’t have done anything different. At no point did turning her in seriously cross his mind.
“You’re on vacation. And contrary to what Iknowyou’re thinking right now, this isn’t your fault.” Axel put a hand on Cam’s shoulder.
“Sure it is. The moment I saw the picture her mother gave us, I should have turned her in.”
Axel frowned. “But you love her.”
“I do, but that’s beside the point. I broke the rules. A cardinal rule, in fact, and now we’re all paying the price for it.”
“Love isn’t beside the point, Cam, itisthe point,” Axel said fiercely. “If you find someone you love, and that person feels the same way, nothing—especially a stupid arranged marriage—should stand in your way.”
“I didn’t know you felt this way.”
A strange smile shaped Axel’s mouth. “Well, I may have watched the two of you for a while before I rudely interjected myself into your moment at the mall. She loves you. You love her. It’s so obvious a blind person could see it. Love like that should never be considered wrong or inconvenient. It would be the height of foolishness to turn someone you love in because of a rule, cardinal or not. I know things look dire, but have faith. Eventually it will all work out.”
Cam appreciated Axel’s optimism. He took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to dislodge the panic that was growing inside him at an exponential rate. He was grateful his brother could see the love he and Ria shared, but it wouldn’t make any difference in the end. Ria was trapped in an arranged marriage, and beyond the crazy notion of faking her death—which probably wouldn’t work anyway—he didn’t know how to free her.
With this mysterious illness running rampant in town—caused possibly by the lady’s maid coming ashore to find Ria—it was only a matter of time before the facts surfaced and they would be ruined. At best, his job here on Earth would be stripped from him and he’d be sent back to Alpha-Prime, separated from his family forever. At worst, he faced a quick trip to a gulag to serve hard time, breaking boulders into pea gravel with a sledgehammer until the day he died.
He would gladly take the fall for Ria, even if it meant dying in a gulag. But it hurt more than he could fathom that saving her would force her into a future with someone else.
He almost hoped for the gulag. If he was sent to Alpha-Prime, he’d be forced to witness her future life with another man, a dirt bag, no less. That was the very definition of hard time.
Ria woke on Axel’s sofa refreshed and ready to do battle. If her mother had been near, she would have sought her out and explained her feelings. As she wasn’t, Ria waited impatiently for Cam or Axel or anyone to return. She gathered some courage and cracked open Axel’s office door to peek out. She saw nothing and no one. She opened the door wider. No one was around. There was not a sound nearby.
She stepped from the room, closed Axel’s office door and tiptoed down the hall until she reached the lounge where the cruise liner’s passenger had disembarked.
There were a few people in the large space that was described in the way station literature as a small town-sized area of fun. Ria skirted the edge, making her way toward the stairs leading up and out. She climbed the staircase, noting it looked different from the previous escape route she’d used. At the top of the stairs, she opened a door—and heard voices.
She crept down the hall. As she got closer, she recognized the speakers as Cam and Axel.
Cam said something like, “I didn’t know you felt this way.”
An air vent came alive beside her, muffling the first part of Axel’s response. She had to move closer to catch, “…it would be the height of foolishness to turn someone you love in because of a rule, cardinal or not. I know things look dire, but have faith. Eventually it will all work out.”
Cam loved her? That was good. He was thinking about turning her in? That wasn’t so good. She couldn’t blame him, though. This whole fiasco was her fault, starting with her bucket list and all she’d done to thumb her nose at the rules.
Ria knew only one thing: She wouldn’t let him suffer because of her. If it came down to it and there was no other choice, he couldn’t turn her in if she turned herself in.
“What are you doing there?”
A small scream escaped before she could stop it and Ria jumped a foot off the ground. She turned to see a stranger.
Her eyes dropped to the woman’s name tag and she said, “Hi, Nova.”
The woman ignored her friendly tone to say, “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of Cam’s.”
Her brows furrowed. “How do you know my name?”
Ria pointed to her name tag.
The woman rolled her eyes and flashed a quick smile. “Forgive my rudeness. It’s been quite a day and I’ve just had too much excitement.”
Cam and Axel must have heard Ria’s scream, because they were right there, Cam demanding, “Are you okay? I heard you scream.”
