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Alec forced himself to ignore her and caught Marco’s eye. “Go at my signal,” he said in Italian. “No matter what.”
Marco gave a single nod as he held fast to Lottie, who was still crying out and trying to wriggle from his grasp. Without another word Alec turned around. Then he pulled out the stiletto knife he kept strapped to his ankle and marched toward the guard. “Leave now and I won’t kill you.”
The brute clutched weakly at the handle protruding from his shoulder. His sleeve had already turned crimson. “If I let you go, I’m good as dead anyway, Professor. The signore doesn’t take kindly to failure,” he panted.
Alec brandished the stiletto. “Your odds are still better with him.”
The guard let out a low chuckle and went back down to both knees, raising his palms in surrender. “Fine,” he said wearily. “Everyone knows I faint at the sight of my own blood anyway.”
Alec stepped closer and thrust the tip of the stiletto against his opponent’s sizable chest. “Then I suggest you make it so,” he said viciously. It would take a determined push to pierce the skin and could leave Alec vulnerable to attack, but he would stop at nothing to keep this man away from that boat.
The man cast a dazed glance past Alec. “Is she worth it?” They both knew the signore would not soon forget this.
“She is wortheverything.”
A knowing smile played on the man’s lips and he let out a faint laugh. Then, all it took was a mere glance at his sleeve before he fell heavily on his side.
Alec kept his eyes on the silent figure as he backed toward the boat and climbed in. As he entered the tiny cabin, he felt Lottie’s arms come around him, felt her tears wet his collar, heard her desperate cries of relief, but only one thought echoed in his mind as the craft pulled away from the dock.
She is safe.
As the boat sped across the lagoon, Lottie clung to Alec, not caring a whit how desperate she appeared now. Shewasdesperate. Besides, even if she had wanted to move, Alec’s powerful arm held her fast by his side. How close they had come. And how very stupid she had been. Lottie did not know if the man they left on the dock was still alive, but she was certain that Alec would not have hesitated to kill him if needed.
And that he would have sacrificed himself to save her life.
She buried her face against his chest as a shudder came over her. Alec’s hand dropped from her shoulder to her waist and he pulled her closer, but he had yet to utter a word or even look at her. Not since that terrible moment when he pushed her into the boat, and she realized that he’d intended to stay behind. In the instant before he turned away, his face had been like nothing she had ever seen—as pale and hard as a plaster mask—while his eyes gleamed with bone-chilling menace. And single-minded purpose.
Before another shudder could overtake her, Alec let out a little sigh: “That was my favorite switchblade.”
Lottie jerked her head up. “What?”
“I found it in Turkey,” he said evenly, as if their veryliveshadn’t been in danger just minutes ago. “It was nearly fifty years old. I’ll never be able to replace it.” He shook his head.
“I—I’m sorry.”
Alec finally looked down at her. His face was half in shadows in the darkened cabin, but there was only heart-stopping tenderness there. Alec skimmed a hand over her hair, barely touched her curls—as if he feared she would shatter. It was nearly impossible to reconcile this man with the one on the dock, but they were both Alec. And Lottie wanted all of him—to know every facet, every mask he wore, every emotion he tried so desperately to hide from the world. And from her.
“It wasn’t your fault. I never should have brought you here. Not to this house. Not to Venice. I knew the danger, and I did it anyway,” he murmured the last words, as if he was speaking to himself, then turned away once again. “She caught me by surprise, you know,” he added. “It meant nothing.”
It took Lottie a moment to realize he was speaking of the Frenchwoman. “I believe you,” she rasped. Her voice had gone hoarse from crying. “You don’t need to explain anything to me.”
Alec faced her then. His eyes now gleamed with something else. “I want to,” he insisted. “Regardless of what your uncle once told you, the things I do are never for pleasure. They serve another purpose entirely.”
“But how can you stand it? Watching you with her, I thought—”
“It isn’t always like that,” Alec interrupted, then he paused. “In my experience it is far easier to be with someone I don’t care for than to be with someone I do.”
Lottie had the feeling they were now treading on quicksand. She hesitated. “How do you know?”
Alec turned away again. A sliver of moonlight touched his cheek, making his olive skin look almost porcelain. “Because. I kissed someone. Only once. And that told me everything I needed to know.”
The admission would have suffused her with joy, if not for the grim certainty in his voice. He thought such feelings were a hindrance.
She kept her words brief, so her voice wouldn’t crack. “I see.”
He glanced at her and raised a dark brow. “Doyou?”
Lottie thought of her pathetic conditions, how even the lightest of his touches set off a storm within her. “Yes.” She moved to bury her head against his chest once again, but he gripped her by the shoulders and forced her to meet his gaze.
