His throat worked over a swallow. “So I was more than your mark?”
She sat up and laid her hands on the sides of his face, needing him to understand. “You were my everything.”
He nodded, his eyes closing as if in pain before they opened again, shining with relief. If she had to spend the rest of her life proving it, she would; she never wanted him to doubt how much she loved him again.
As if she was outside naked in a blizzard, her entire body shook violently, her teeth chattering. “At first, my instructions were to marry you, divorce you, and take you for as much money as I could without getting any attorneys involved. But my dad got greedier. He decided he wanted all of it. If you died, you would have been worth a lot more to me than you would as my ex-husband.”
Her throat constricted, preventing her from speaking. It took her three tries before she could say it. The words were like razor blades, cutting her from the inside. “I was ordered to kill you.”
He didn’t seem surprised.
Pulling on the blanket, he wrapped it and his arms around her, enveloping her in warmth. “You should have told me.”
Relief swept through her as she cried into his chest. The truth had never tasted so sweet. “I wanted to. Believe me, I wanted to. But if I didn’t do it, he would have. There was only one way to save you. He kept a book—he called it his black list—that logged every con he’d ever done. I stole it from him. I left a note telling him if anything happened to you I’d give it to the FBI. And then I ran.” She couldn’t stop crying, her tears soaking his skin.
“Why didn’t you go to the FBI in the first place?” he asked softly. “I would’ve helped you. We could’ve stayed together.”
“We would’ve been torn apart.” At least that’s what she’d thought then. Now, she wasn’t as certain. “Even if you forgave me, my father wasn’t the only one who had committed a crime. My brothers—Asa and Mitch—and I would have been sent to prison, as well. I couldn’t do that to them. And I was scared. Scared once you knew the real me, you’d hate me. Scared to spend the next twenty years in prison. Scared my father would find a way to kill you in retaliation. I didn’t see any other way.”
He ran his hand over the stubble lining his rigid jaw. “I would’ve had my attorneys negotiate a plea deal for you so you’d do as little time as possible, if any at all. You didn’t trust me enough, you didn’t trust in our love enough, to take that risk.”
He was right.
But she’d given him all she had at the time. “I loved you as much as I knew how to love anyone.”
A notch formed between his eyebrows. “If you had to do it all over again, would you make that same decision?”
She’d asked herself that same question several times this week, and she still didn’t have an answer.
She blew out a breath. “I don’t know. All I do know is I can’t change the past.”
His eyes blazed with heat as he dragged his finger down her throat and hooked his finger in her silver collar. “Your father is dead. There’s nothing standing in our way anymore. Let’s break our damned agreement.”
Her heart thundered as he stood from the bed and, in all his naked glory, strode across the room to where his pants were draped over a chair. He dug through his pockets, coming back with a closed fist. After shifting her so that her legs hung over the side of the bed, he kneeled on the carpet and opened his palm, revealing their wedding bands. “I don’t want a divorce. I just want you. My wife. My submissive. Forever and ever, until death do us part.”
Her hand itched to snatch the ring and place it on her finger. But he needed to know the risks in being with her. “Someone wants you dead because of me.”
He shrugged as if it was nothing. “Let me worry about that.”
“I went to my office earlier today, before I went to Asa’s,” she said quickly, so she wouldn’t chicken out. “Someone had broken in and left me another note.”
His face went stony. “You lied to me?”
“I didn’t want you to follow me there.” She slid off the mattress onto her knees in front of him. “I was going to get the black list and give it to Asa so that I could move on with my life. With you.”
His expression softened. “What did the note say?”
“Next time it will be Sawyer. The note was attached to a dead squirrel. Whoever is doing this isn’t going to hurt me.” She placed her hand over his heart. “But he will hurt you.”
“I’m not going to let anyone keep me from you ever again,” he vowed, as if he could stop death from claiming him.