“I have to abandon my mission,” she aptly concludes.
There’s an urgency in my bones to convey how vital this is because of the hell that KORT will put her through if anything suggests she’d be a liability. But Ivy was firm about the fallout that would ensue if they suspected I’d prepared her. Zara may respond out of character if she’s aware it’s a test, and that would be viewed as deceit.
So, I simply turn it around on her. “Isn’t your mission essentially botched and over?”
“Only if I don’t manage to come through, which I still could.” She ducks beneath my arm and sashays to the stone parapet wall, bracing her hip against it. “Giving it up helps you and your organization trust me. But if my client isn’t KORT, that abandonment puts my father’s and brother’s lives in jeopardy. It will look like I was a double agent for KORT, like we deceived them.” Her hand folds over her mouth, as if she’s envisioning the carnage. “And even if I work for you after I flake on this mission, any job I get would then be given to me on your merit. Not mine.”
The ire coursing through my veins threatens to eat me alive. I respect her concern for her family, but if I’m not mistaken, her dear ol’ dad is the one indicating she might be neutralized.
There’s no concealing my defeat. “So, that’s your answer?”
“No,” she insists with a wistfulness that expresses her aspiration to strive for this. “That’s not … I want this to work. The thought of being yours is … everything.”
“You already are mine.”
She throws up her palm, rejecting that. “Unless I refuse to—”
“You are mine regardless.” I drop down before her, perched on a side table and peering at her from a position that is more submissive than I’d generally assume, but I need her to absorb this. So, I tug her between my legs, my hands flanking her hips. “You are it for me. I don’t know what that looks like if you … but we need to figure it out. I have half a mind to chain you to my bed.” I chuckle when her eyes flash with excitement. “My filthy girl. We’ll back-pocket that idea for something fun, but not for a real solution.”
“How much time do we have?” she asks, her fingers scratching my nape.
“Until the Prohibition Ball.”
She scoffs, brows buckling from the weight of indignation. “Three days?”
“Yes.” I hedge before deciding to add a little more. “That’s the last possible moment for me to claim you without it blowing up in our faces. I’ve already pushed it.”
“And to be yours in public, claimed, what would that entail?”
“Marrying me,” I tell her, and even I’m surprised by the elation ushering those words. The mood is somber, but I can’t snuff out my joy at the thought of her being my wife.
She pushes off my chest, putting several feet between us, the luminescent moonlight casting an angelic glow on her despite her clipped reaction. “No.”
“No?”
“That’s my answer.” She glares—the Zara from the gym mats, the Zara who held a gun to my ribs. “I’ll saycoinif it’s confusing. Not like this. I can’t.”
I rise and pull her against me, unwilling to let her escape that easily. “Like what?”
“Like you have to—”
“Zara, you want to know why I said my Atlas tattoo only partially represented what I was trying to explain about carrying things for the people I love? Because Atlas was cursed. But I don’t feel cursed. I feel guilty sometimes because after what happened to my mom, it would’ve been a deserving penance if raising my siblings felt like a curse. Being a father to them—a far better one than I had, even when I was at my worst—has been the greatest privilege of my life.”
A drop of anguish spills down her face. “This is—”
“You are no different,” I cut her off, swiping my thumb across her silky cheek and collecting her pain. “Even if you were hired to take down my entire kingdom, I’d still deem you my greatest treasure. Since the day you arrived, I’ve woken up with you on my mind and closed my eyes to the vision of your beautiful face. And you’ve ushered my every step in between. Marriage wasalways something I considered a burden. Until you. With you, it would be a gift.”
She heaves a sigh, putting more space between us as she stares out at the evening cityscape. She’s so striking here, looming over everything, like the regal goddess she is. “I’m familiar with how these organizations work. It means you’d own me.”
“In regard to my KORT position, my alliances, and your ability to leave me? Yes. I won’t sugarcoat it. There would be no way out. Divorce is prohibited, which means there would be no way out for me either. You’d own me just as much.” I shove my hands in my pockets, listening to the muffled din of all I’ve built, as if soulful blues were the melody for my entreaty. “As far as my business goes, La Lune Noire, my family? You’d be an equal, my queen. And I’d be everything you need.”
Those green gems that sparkle with so much conflict and despondency search me in earnest. “You present it like … are you really offering me a choice?”
“I’m not sure.” I pull the long box out of my pocket, placing it in her hands. “Don’t open that until you have some time to think about things—alone. It’s not a ring. Obviously. I have one for you, but I won’t show you that until …”
I turn away, scrubbing my hand over my face, hating that this feels so similar to the days preceding my parents’ deaths. I can’t shake it, but it fuels me with the compulsion to lay it all bare, so I twist back to her.
“You indicated on your sheet and in things you said that a part of you wanted to be owned. That’s how this would be—you by my side, but mine. Mine to spoil. To shelter. To tease and satisfy and lead beside. To love. My greatest treasure. Yes,” I rasp on a shuddered breath, sweeping her satin locks away from her gorgeous, questioning face. “I love you. So much that it hurts. I can’t seem to breathe or … Don’t respond to that yet.”
