“She raised two boys who committed a brutal murder. You were a daily reminder. Why you were placed in her home, I have no idea. My guess, if I had to make one, is that it was all about penance.”

She nodded, still staring out the window. What was there to say? Osamu had hated her. Sometimes she hated Ryuu. Most of the time the woman had loved him. She’d set up conflict between Ryuu and Mariko so that he would side with Osamu against her, feel guilty and then be angry at Osamu. Like Mariko, Ryuu was always off-balance. Osamu had been very good at keeping both that way.

Ricco shifted in his seat, reaching for her, drawing her against the protection of his body. She didn’t resist. He was warm and felt invincible. She let him hold her because she needed holding. She felt a little guilty over that. They’d buried his father today. Hers had been dead for years, yet he was comforting her.

“You didn’t eat much,” he said softly, his fingers sliding through her hair. “Are you hungry?”

She should be taking care of him, not the other way around. She felt vaguely ashamed that she could only stare out the window, feeling his hands in her hair, and his body solid against hers. Sometimes she felt completely invisible, as if she not only worked in the shadows but lived there – and she’d wanted to. Like now. Except that Ricco could see her no matter where she was, invisible or not. He could always find her.

“No.” She wasn’t the least bit hungry. She was sad. Very, very sad. She’d been living in a dream world with him, and it wasn’t going to last. She knew the truth somewhere in her head, but her heart had refused to listen and she’d let him in. He was there, inside of her, and she knew she’d never get him out.

Living with Osamu had been a child’s nightmare. She’d never understood why the woman would take in two children off the street she despised so much. Osamu had said their mother was a whore and that she had abandoned them. Mariko had been beaten “for her own good,” to get the devil out of her. She didn’t dare wear clothes or makeup that might be considered attractive to a man. She’d never felt attractive until she met Ricco Ferraro.

“Mariko,” he said softly. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

It was the last thing she wanted to do. She didn’t know what she was feeling – although sorrow was close. He had stolen her heart with his care for her. The way he seemed to cherish her. He made her so much more than she was when she was with him. He gave her a confidence in herself as a woman, as a human. He made her feel beautiful and intelligent. He listened to anything she said. He wanted her to speak.

“Mariko.”

Her name whispered over her skin. Slid inside her. Wrapped around her heart. How could she leave him? Leave a dream? A fantasy? If she didn’t, no matter what happened with her brother, she knew the longer she stayed with Ricco, the more it would tear her apart when she left. She’d have to leave for her own self-respect. She couldn’t be in love with a man who would eventually despise her. She’d lived with that all her life and she was done with it.

“I’m okay. Just thinking. The interview must have been difficult for you.”

“In a way it was freeing. Just as it was when I told my family. I carried those secrets and the fear that they would all be targeted. They were, but I realized it wasn’t through my fault. I did what had to be done. I saved two children. I would do it again even knowing what would happen. Telling the council made me feel vindicated.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and scraped at the pads of her fingers with his teeth. She went damp, her sex clenching. He could do that so easily without even trying, his mouth hot against her cooler skin – his teeth moving over her flesh and leaving behind a trail of sparks.

The car pulled through the gates leading to his home, after making its way slowly through a crowd of photographers. Flashes went off continuously while Emilio and Enzo searched through a series of security screens on their phones before taking them all the way up to the house.

The reporters had had a field day speculating that the Ferraro family had gone to war with another crime family, and that the Saldis had sided with the Ferraros. Of course the news media had picked up the story and run with it. Sensation sold, true or not.

All the while, as the car moved through the eager photographers and reporters, Ricco kept his arm over Mariko’s head, keeping her face pressed into his chest so none of the cameras could capture her image. Despite her emotional turmoil, the protective gesture made her feel cherished. That was part of his charm, part of the reason so many women – including herself – fell for him.

The moment they were inside the house, she moved away from him. “I think I’ll take a hot bath, Ricco,” she informed him. She needed the respite from his constant presence. He was overwhelming. Intense. There was disappointment on his face, but he didn’t try to argue with her or talk her out of it. Because he left the decision up to her, courage had her lifting her chin. “After, I would very much like to do more Shibari with you.”

She was determined to seduce him. He had stated he was going to seduce her, but it was going to be the other way around. When he put the ropes on her, she was always drowning, totally drenched in desire for him. It wasn’t the ropes, it was the dark lust she saw in his eyes, the deep passion there when he looked at her. She was totally determined that she would have her time with him before she left. She felt very brave telling him she’d like to have a rope session with him.

His eyes lit up. “When you’re ready, Mariko, come into the studio. I’ll set up the lights and find some appropriate music.”

“Do you have a preference for what you’d like me to wear?” She kept her voice low, looking at him through the long sweep of her lashes, hoping he would cooperate.

“How daring are you feeling?”

Before she lost her courage, she answered, “Very.”

It was the right answer. His eyes darkened. He gave her that look she’d come to crave. He was totally focused on her as if she were the only woman in his world. For the time she had with him, she was going to be that woman.

“There’s a black lacy robe hanging in the closet. Wear that. Nothing else. Hair up. Red lipstick. Eyes smoky. Sexy.”

He was pure Ricco, the one she was so familiar with. His voice was a velvet command that made her shiver with need and want to give him every single thing he asked for – and more. She heard the promise of passion and paradise. She’d never known paradise before – never experienced true joy – but before she left him, before she walked away from her one chance at happiness, she was determined to discover that elusive feeling with him.

She’d lived in a stark, ugly environment her entire life. Ricco accepted her just as she was. He had known why she was there – to kill him – and yet he hadn’t judged her. He didn’t care if her blood wasn’t pure one way or the other. She took a deep breath and nodded her head, to let him know she understood what he wanted before she turned and walked down the wide hall to her suite.