Page 82 of Dangerous

Before he could reach the arrogant-looking bastard—who’d scrambled to his feet and actually taken a step toward Adam—a hand like a vise landed on his shoulder and a second one closed around his forearm as it moved to the hilt of his sword.

“Now, now Exley,” Ramsay said, his tone pacific as he held Adam in an unbreakable grip. “I cannot let you kill Martín. You see, that is a pleasure I am reserving for myself. Perhaps you should ask your wife why she is here. I think she has several matters to discuss with you.”

The baron turned him to face Mia before releasing him. “Make yourselves comfortable. Martín and I will adjourn to the library.” The baron cut the younger man a grim look. “I have a few things to say to him. When you are finished here, you can join us and we can discuss the problem like level-headed adults.”

Adam stared at his wife’s bowed head while the others left the room. Once the door had closed he went to the large picture window and leaned one hand against it, looking out at the breaking dawn.

“Adam?”

He steeled himself and turned. Mia was looking up at him with eyes etched by fatigue and worry.

“Please—” She gestured to the small sofa. “Won’t you sit? I would like to tell you everything.”

Adam was shaking with fury born of an almost heart-stopping fear. Fear that he wouldn’t find her in time, fear that she might be hurt, fear that she would never return, fear that she might—God forbid—die. He clenched his jaw and sat.

She laid a hand on his forearm. “I have wanted to tell you the truth since almost the beginning, but I was afraid you would hate me when you learned how I deceived you.” She looked up at him, her eyes searching and desperate.

Adam crossed his arms, the action pulling his arm from her grip. “Go on.”

“I was so unhappy when we first met. The weeks I spent in England were hellish. My father was cold and controlling and I quickly understood that he wished I’d never come back. It took only days before I wished the same thing—that I had gone anywhere else in the world except here. Somewhere I could live without being a public spectacle or the latest on-dit for people who despised me.” She swallowed so hard he could hear it. “I have to confess that I entered our marriage with every intention of running away as soon as you left me at Exham and returned to London.”

Each breath Adam took was a struggle, as though some invisible force was crushing and squeezing his chest. He could not stop staring at her. She’d chosen him not in spite of his background, but because of it: she had wanted a man with a proven inability to keep a wife and she had found the perfect, pathetic fool.

Again she took his arm. “My plan was to return to the Mediterranean, where I could rejoin my son.”

His jaw dropped. “Your son?”

“Yes, I lied when I told you he’d died. I decided to keep his existence a secret after I returned to England. I could see any mention of a child born to a man who’d not been my husband would make an even more disastrous situation worse, not to mention give my father the idea I might one day want to escape.”

Her son? That was what she had been hiding?

“My son was his father’s true heir. Although Jibril—that is Arabic for Gabriel,” she said, fierce pride blazing across her face—“although he was not his father’s eldest, he was his most favored. His older brother Assad refused to step aside for him when the sultan died. For more than half a year they have fought for possession of their father’s wealth, power, and people. And now Assad has captured Jibril and is holding him for ransom. If I do not bring him the money”—she passed a hand over her face, as if to wipe the horrible thought away—“Assad will kill him.” She grasped his arm with both hands. “Don’t you see now? Why I had to leave you?”

Adam pulled away, too furious and confused to want her touch. “Why didn’t you come to me when you learned of your son’s abduction? Why did you turn to that ... that—” He gestured angrily toward the chair where the arrogant bastard had sat, grinning at Adam, smirking at the fact that he—and not Adam—had been the one Mia had turned to. The pain and rejection he heard in his own voice only made him more irate.

Her mouth trembled, “I wanted to—so badly. But I was afraid. You see, I need to go to him, Adam. I must go to Oran.”

“What?”

“Assad wants me to bring him the ransom.”

“You want to go to Africa?” His voice was unnaturally high.

She nodded.

“Have you gone bloody mad?” He stood and glared down at her. “Absolutely not. I will send Ramsay’s man with the money. I will pay him for the use of his ship, his crew—whatever is necessary. The only place you’re going, ma’am, is back to Exham.”

She clutched at his arm. “I must go. Assad wants the money only from my hand.”

Adam felt like he was a player in some bizarre farce. It was a struggle not to grab her and shake her until her teeth rattled.

“I don’t care what he wants, Mia. Any plans you’ve made for leaving English soil are out of the question. The sooner you accept it, the better it will be for everyone.”

She sank to her knees beside him. “Adam, if you forbid me to go to my son and anything happens to him, I will never forgive you. Do you understand what that will do to us?” Tears ran from her red-rimmed eyes—eyes already swollen from crying.

“You mean other than what you’ve already done to us?” His words were like the crack of a whip. He pulled away from her, sickened by her begging and how it made him feel—brutal and heartless. And scared.

“Let me explain, Adam, about Gamble. That was all a misunderstanding.”