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I get up and walk around the island to her. Taking hold of her hips, I turn her to face me and lean down until we’re eye-to-eye. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But…”
“Cami, listen to me,” I snap.
Her eyes go wide, and I finally have her full attention.
I lift my hands and frame her face. “Yes, I will return to work. No, I’m not going to change. I’m an assassin. I’ll always be one.”
Heartache darkens her eyes.
“But I’m not letting you go. I meant it when I said you’re mine. We’ll find a way to make things work between us.”
Confusion flutters over her face. “How? Are you going to leave me for weeks or months at a time, and I’ll see you between hits?”
Christ, there’s no way I’ll be able to do that.
I pull back and let out a sigh. “Honestly?”
She nods.
“I was seriously contemplating kidnapping you so I can keep you by my side at all times.”
A burst of laughter escapes her, and it makes the corner of my mouth lift.
“It’s not kidnapping if I go willingly.”
I stare at her for a moment, then ask, “Will you be able to do that?” I wave a hand at nothing in general. “Will you leave all of this behind for me?”
Her gaze searches mine, and when she hesitates, I say the words for the first time in fourteen years, “I love you.”
My mother was the last person who heard those words from me.
Cami’s lips part with shock, and she blinks at me as if I spoke a foreign language.
Taking her hand, I pull her off the stool so she’s standing in front of me. I lift my other hand to the side of her neck and look deep into her eyes. “I love you, Cami. I haven’t said those words to anyone but my sister and mother.” I lean down and press my forehead to hers. “I fucking love you so much. There’s no way I’ll ever let you go. I don’t care if I have to take you kicking and screaming, but I will if it’s the only way I can have you.”
“This is kind of romantic,” she teases, but then her features tighten with emotion, and she slams into my chest. “I needed to hear it so much.”
My woman clings to me as she admits, “I wasn’t sure how you felt about me. I’ve been dying a slow death thinking you were going to leave. I know you said you wouldn’t, but you’ve never told me how you felt, so I wasn’t completely convinced what we had was special enough to make you stay with me.”
I wrap her up in my arms and lower my head until my mouth brushes against her ear, then I whisper, “I love you, baby.”
She lets out a sob, then finally says, “I love you, too. So very much.”
Her words fall over me like rain on a summer’s day. I swear it washes some of my soul clean from all the blood it’s collected over the years.
“Enough to come over to the dark side?” I ask playfully so she’ll laugh instead of cry.
Because of Cami, I think I’m actually starting to grow a sense of humor.
“I’ll go anywhere with you.”
I pull a little back to see her face. “Yeah?”
She scrunches her nose. “Just not a cabin any time soon.”
My eyes lock with hers. “I need to hear it again.”
