“How?” She drew back and stared at me.
“He’s the only one who knew about your marking. Felicity told me she removed it. You can come back now. We can be together the way we should have been. I can really keep you safe in Italy now.”
Unease passed over her face. Before I could figure out what she was thinking, she pushed off me and stood.
“Natalie?”
“Th-there’s something I need to show you back at the house. Something that… changes things.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I pushed to my feet and watched her carefully, but before I could ask what she meant, Haych rushed out of the foliage and skidded to a stop.
“Miss Natalie?”
“I’m fine, Haych.” She crossed the rocks and quickly hugged him. “Are you all right?” She drew back and stared up at him. “Sela?”
“I’m fine. She’s fine. No worries.”
Natalie breathed easier.
Haych moved to the cliff and glanced over the side. “We need to take care of that before anyone shows up looking for him.”
My brain snapped back into action. Haych was right. I couldn’t be completely sure Giovanni had come all the way to the South Pacific alone. And if someone from my House or any of the other Houses found him here...
I focused on Haych instead of the nervous look suddenly consuming Natalie’s features. “We’ll need to take him out in the boat and dump his body far enough out so the current doesn’t bring him back.”
“We’ll need to do it soon. Current’s already trying to pull him out.”
I stepped past Natalie toward the path that led back to the house.
She turned to look after me. “Luc?”
“It’s okay.” I forced a smile I didn’t feel. “We’ll talk when I get back.”
But the whole way down all I could think about was what she could possibly tell me that would change things between us.
And what I would do if she didn’t want to return to Italy with me.
I was a bundle of nerves by the time we got back.
Haych and I dumped Gio’s body twenty miles out, in an area I knew the current moved away from the island. The marine life there was plentiful. If he washed up on any nearby shores he’d be hard to identify, especially with his face smashed in from that fall on the rocks. Anyone who found him would assume he was a tourist who had one too many and hit his head when he fell overboard.
It was close to eleven p.m. when we docked. I’d been running on pure adrenaline the last thirty-six hours, but I wasn’t tired. All I could think about was returning to Natalie, pulling her into my arms, and showing her just how much I’d missed her these last eighteen months. And convincing her that whatever she needed to tell me didn’t change anything.
I loved her. I’d always love her, no matter what had happened while we’d been apart.
I didn’t want her to see any lingering signs of what had happened to Gio, though. So I bypassed the house and followed Haych to his cottage to clean up. He and Sela had married in the time I’d been away and were now living in her villa. His things were mostly cleaned out save a few boxes of old clothes. I grabbed a T-shirt from the closest box and gave my bloody dress shirt to Haych with instructions to burn it and his soiled clothing the following day.
The lights were on in the main house when I pushed the front door open. Voices echoed from the kitchen—Natalie’s and Sela’s—and my nerves spun as I headed that way. The earlier mess had been cleaned up, and the villa was exactly as I remembered. But I was too focused on finding Natalie to appreciate it.
My heart skipped a beat when I entered the room and spotted Natalie at the table with a cup of tea in front of her. Our eyes held, and hers grew wary as she gazed at me. But underneath all those nerves I also saw heat. A heat that fired each cylinder in my body and brought every single neuron to life.
“Well?” Natalie pushed to her feet and stared at me from across the room. A bruise had formed on her cheek from Giovanni’s attack, but to me she’d never been more beautiful. An angel shining bright in the middle of all my darkness.
“All taken care of,” I answered.
“He won’t be bothering anyone ever again,” Haych said as he moved into the room at my side.
Natalie exhaled a relieved breath. Before I could go to her, though, Sela turned from where she was stirring something in a mug at the counter, spotted me, and shrieked, “Luc!”
She held a baby in her arms, one with dark hair and bronze skin I only saw for a few seconds before she pushed the child at Haych and threw her arms around my neck. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I hugged her, catching Natalie’s amused expression across the room. As much as I wanted only to grab my wife and never let go, I didn’t want to be impolite. “Thanks. It’s good to be home.”
Even if it was only a brief visit.
I pushed that thought aside and realized something very hard and round was pressing against my stomach. Easing back, I looked down and lifted my brow in surprise. “You’re pregnant.”
“Yeah.” A proud grin curled Sela’s lips as she ran a hand over her swollen belly. “Only a few more months. I’m ready to be done.”
I glanced toward Haych who’d moved across the kitchen and was struggling with the dark-haired baby, bouncing the fussy kid in his arms. I couldn’t tell how old the kid was but he had to be close to a year if Sela was pregnant already again. “You’ve been busy while I’ve been away.”
“Some. Not as much as you might think.”
“Here.” Natalie moved toward Haych and reached for the wiggling baby. “I’ll take him.”
The baby held out his arms for Natalie and made a cooing sound. As soon as she pulled him against her, he laid his head on her shoulder and started sucking on his fist.
A pang of loss hit me hard. I hadn’t let myself think too much about kids because I knew it was never an option for me. But as I watched Natalie gently rocking Sela’s baby, and I saw what a natural mother she was, something in my heart felt as if it shattered right there in front of her, even though I had no reason to feel anything but relief that she was safe once and for all.
“Luc?”
I startled at the sound of Sela’s voice and looked down. “Yeah.”
She smiled. “I asked if you were hungry. I could make something if you—“
“No, I’m fine.”
I suddenly wanted her and her babies gone. I didn’t want to be reminded of everything I’d given up. I just wanted to reconnect with my wife and lose myself in Natalie’s sweetness. To convince her whatever she was worried about didn’t even matter. “I’m mostly just tired.”
“Of course you are.” She turned toward Haych. “We should probably go and let them get some sleep.”
Haych smirked, knowing full well I didn’t want sleep. He turned to Natalie. “Goodnight, Miss Natalie.”
“Thanks Haych. For everything.”
He blushed and crossed toward me to shake my hand and reassure me Sela wouldn’t be bugging us in the morning.
Sela moved Natalie’s way and the two women hugged. They exchanged quiet words I couldn’t make out, then I heard Sela say, “If you change your mind, call us.”