“Don't.”
“I have to go with him.”
“No, Harry, you bloody don’t.”
“We keep each other safe.”
She didn’t have a response to that, and seemed to soften a little.
“Ari,” he murmurs, “you are my everything. You always have been. But you must understand that I have a duty to this family. Your family.”
“A duty?” she snorts. “You have done more than enough.”
“Ari. I’m here to protect you and the rest of the family. And to do that, my place is beside Alistair.”
Ariana’s nostrils flared, and I could see the muscles in her jaw tense. Her eyes come up very slowly.
“Yourplace?”
“Ariana—”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Ari—”
“Say it. Say ‘My place is beside Alistair’.Say that to me one more time and see what happens.”
He doesn't say it again. She doesn’t move her hand from her stomach. “I don’t need you to protect me. I have never needed anyone to protect me. You know what I am. You know what I can do. If someone comes through the door of that house tonight I will handle it. What I have been asking for is a man whocomes home.And what you are telling me, right now, in this corridor, is that when Alistair calls you will go. Every time. For the rest of our lives. Because your place is beside him.”
“Ari, that isn't?—”
“It is. It is exactly that. You have just told me.” She looks at him very steadily. “So go. Go and take your fuckingplace.”
“Ari—”
“Just fucking go.”
She watches him move toward me with the same cold focused attention.
Ivy has watched all of this without moving. She is still holding my hand.
“Alistair.”
“We won’t be long.”
“Don't.”
“I have to.”
“You don't have to. Youthinkyou have to.”
“It's a debt. It's a conversation. That's all.”
“Elena was supposed to be a conversation too.”
“Ivy—”
“Elena was supposed to be a conversation, Alistair. And look what happened. Thenurseryexploded. Our son is asleep in a car seat with a dressing on his head because your lastconversation. Brumilde almostdied.”
