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She takes a step back.
“Keeping me from my father and the truth isn’t protecting me.”
“It is, and you know it.”
She breathes, and I see the fight leave. She knows I’m right. She can’t trust her father any more than she can trust me. Her father is trying to protect her by keeping her innocent and weak so she has no chance of winning and becoming part of this life. Or he’s a monster who doesn’t love his daughter. Maybe there was another sibling that was born. A son he kept hidden trying to raise to take Kai’s place, but something happened to that boy, and now it’s too late.
My father ordered me to kill Kai when he realized she was my competition. If he knew of a son, he would have done anything to kill the child to ensure I won. My father never thought I was strong enough.
“What if I don’t want your protection?”
I take her left hand in mine, my thumb tracing over the diamond sitting on her thin finger. “This ring may not be a vow of marriage. It’s not a pledge of my loyalty for all of eternity. It’s a vow to protect you, forever. I fucked up once, but now I realize my mistake. I owe you a lifetime of making it up to you, and that means protection, whether you want it or not. I’ll protect you with my life.”
Another tear falls.
I wipe it away, relishing the chills her skin sends through my body.
“My words aren’t meant to make you cry.”
She smiles lightly. “To most women, they might sound like heaven, but to me, I realize the truth. Your protection is just another way to control me. I don’t want your protection, Enzo.”
I sigh as she pulls once again out of my grasp.
“I’m sorry, Kai, but you don’t have a choice.”
She shakes her head. “I always have a choice. I’d rather die than be controlled.”
“I’d rather you be alive.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “Maybe saving you from death will absolve me of some of my other sins.”
“It won’t.”
“We’ll see.”
Kai stares at the door, and I know what she’s thinking. Of running inside and finding her father before I banish him. But I’m not the one keeping him from her, he is. He’s had every opportunity to speak to her, and yet he’s never tried. And I’m going to find out why.
“Come,” I say.
It’s a command, and I’m not sure she will follow it. As much as I wish she were truly mine, she’s not. She’s free willed and does what she wants, even if I know what’s best for her.
I smile when I hear her heels on the sidewalk behind me. She catches up with me easily, but then stops in her tracks when she sees where we are headed.
“Go for a ride with me?” I ask as I stare at the gorgeous yacht looming in the distance. If she wants to get over her fear and no longer need my protection; then this is the way to do it—by facing it.
She takes a step back. “No.”
How can she survive in this life if she can’t face the water?
She can’t.
“Then you’ll have to accept my offer of protection.”
Kai nods silently accepting my words as truth. She doesn’t have a choice. If she can’t protect herself, then I am all she has.
7
