“Go on then,” he said, “tell me what the devil you are doing here.”
“I was told you intend to fight Jeremiah Jones.”
His full lips thinned. “Aye, not that it’s any concern of yours.”
Merciful saints, he intended to do it. What Pen had told her was true. Instinctively, Caro stepped toward him, closing the distance between them, reaching for him. “Gavin, please. I am begging you not to fight. You are still healing, and from what I have been told, Jeremiah Jones is a ruthless man.”
“Save your begging,” he snarled, shaking her touch from his arm.
“You will not be able to defend yourself,” she continued, fear prodding her despite the rage emanating from him. “I am told he has already killed a man.”
“You needn’t fret over me, Sutton. I know where your loyalty lies.”
She flinched, for the words possessed the force of a blow.
Because they were true. Her loyalty had not been to Gavin as it should have been. Instead, she had kept the truth from him, and she would forever hate herself for the choice she had made. An impossible choice, it was true; either way, she would have hurt someone beloved to her.
“I know you are angry with me,” she tried again, “but please do not allow that to cloud your judgment.”
“Angry doesn’t begin to describe the way I feel,” he fumed. “You lied to me. You allowed me to torment myself for weeks, all while you knew who I was. I must have amused you, thinking myself in love with a woman who has no heart.”
She deserved his outrage. But despite what he thought of her, she loved him. She loved him more than she had ever imagined possible. And she had lost him, through no one’s fault but her own. However, she would be damned if she would allow any harm to befall him because of her actions. She could not bear it if anything would happen to him.
“Regardless of your poor opinion of me, you must know that fighting Jeremiah Jones is akin to going to the gallows. Your injury has made you weak, and you have not regained the strength in your wounded arm.”
“The only goddamn thing that made me weak was you,” he countered grimly, his voice filled with darkness and bite. “I’m fighting Jones, and there isn’t a bloody thing you can do to stop me.”
“If you will not listen to me, then surely you will consult your siblings?” she asked, desperate now. “What have they made of this decision of yours?”
Tears pricked her eyes, ready to be shed. She blinked to hold them back.
“Do not speak of them,” he said, his jaw tensed. “They are my blood. You are less than nothing to me.”
His words sank into her heart as surely as any blade. She reeled beneath the weight of them, the crushing fear he would forever hate her for what she had done.
“Despise me if you must,” she forced herself to say. “But I would far prefer to bear your hatred than for you to be killed in a prizefight. I did not nurse you back to health only to watch you throw yourself to the lions.”
His lip curled, but even sneering, he was ruthlessly handsome. “I’mthe lion, Caro. I may have forgotten for a time, but I remember now. I have you to thank for that. Now get out of my family’s hell and out of my life.”
Before she could respond, he turned and stalked from the room, leaving her standing there alone. At the slamming of the door at his back, she allowed the tears to fall. She had failed him.
And this time, she feared, there would be no saving him.
* * *
SeeingCaro again had shaken Gavin.
Shaken him so badly that his hands were literally trembling as he stormed to Dom’s office. His half brother stood at his entrance, quirking a brow.
“Caro Sutton, I presume?”
Caro.
HisCaro.
He had not stopped loving her. Damn it.
Gavin raked his fingers through his hair. “Aye. That is the serpent’s name.”
