“I’m telling you so you’ll understand how difficult this is for me.”
Ian leaned forward with a glint in his dark eyes. “I’m tired of smoke and mirrors. We barely scraped our way out from that mess with Costa. Your ship—the one center of security in this storm of madness—is setting sail without us. Who the hell are you working for, Diana?”
“Are you saying you want to meet them?”
“Are you saying I have a choice?”
He said it so dryly, it made her laugh. The momentary release of tension made her fatigue settle on her.
Her eyes sought comfort in the familiar, handsome planes of his face. His dark whiskers hid the cleft in his chin, and she pondered what it would be like kissing him now, with his beard.
Sitting across the table from him, arguing like this, felt so right, so close to a sense of belonging. She wondered if this was how married couples settled into each other at the end of each day.
Diana would never capitulate to some cliché sense of destiny. But she was tired of pretending that she could easily push Ian out of her life.
It was the last thing she wanted.
“I’ve received orders to deliver the emeralds at sunrise,” she said. “I can’t refuse. It’s the best chance to find something that will expose the traitor. If you come with me to the handover, you’ll know everything I know about the Stags.”
“If the extraction operation at Costa’s wasn’t a trap—and I’m still not convinced it wasn’t—this certainly is,” he insisted.
“There is a time for stealth. And there is a time for calling someone’s bluff.” She rose from the table. “I’m tired of being manipulated.”
Diana wove her way through the tables, but before she reached the door, Ian caught her arm. His hold was surprisingly gentle.
“It would have taken little to convince Jared to give you access to the emeralds. You had the bloody key…you could have stolen the necklace any time,” he murmured. “The Stags could have swapped it for paste without blinking an eye, and you would have remained in the clear. Running from your wedding and flaunting Costa so publicly has drawn attention to your clandestine collective. They can’t like it.”
He leaned in and crowded her against the door. She could have brushed her lips against his if she wanted.
If he’d let her.
“Why did you do it, Diana?”
He wasn’t an obtuse man; she had to conclude that it was sheer stubbornness that kept him from seeing why she’d dared him to chase after her.
“When I received the orders to steal the necklace, I knew the mission could only bring harm to you, and that—” She drew a breath. “That made me see red.”
He echoed her sentiments with a faint growl.
“Whoever is leading the White Stags doesn’t want to protect women. They want to punish the men who harm them. I have to stop whoever is threatening our true mission. Maybe I’m a terrible person for not telling you this sooner. It was the only way I could think of to protect you.”
“You can’t. I’m in this up to my neck, exactly like you.”
“I know.” She studied his face and tried to summon her wavering courage to answer his question truthfully.
“There was another selfish reason I orchestrated it this way.” She reached one hand for the door. “I needed to know where we stood. If you were only after the emeralds. Or if you wanted to find me.”
She flung open the door and stepped out into the darkness, with Ian bellowing behind her to wait.
His words were drowned out by the sound of triggers unlocking as half a dozen men surrounded them.
Chapter Fifteen
Ittookfourmento wrestle Ian away from Diana, and he’d only complied because the bastard who held her with his gun cocked against her head also had a grip on her throat. Ian couldn’t see straight from the panic of what could happen if she tried to free herself.
Their captors had tied the knots binding them well and tight. Diana’s were already chafing, marring her delicate wrists, and he silently vowed to take blood from every person who left a mark on her.
The thugs shoved them on board a tugboat, which hugged the coast back to San Sebastian. Then they dragged them through the narrow alleyways of Calle Santa Korda. The street was barely wide enough for the two men to walk abreast as they hauled Ian between them.
