Chapter 42

Stefan sat back in his seat as Nicki blinked rapidly, but the evidence was on her face, and it wasn't as if he hadn't already figured it out anyway. The signs had all been there—signs he could see with his eyes, and signs that he had felt deep within his own body that he'd been ignoring for far too long. Something was wrong with Nicki that had her spooked far more than the momentary terror he was sure she'd faced with those men.

He'd guessed just now about her being sick…but he knew he was right.

Nicki squirmed under his scrutiny. Opposite them, Ari peered out the window, offering them the illusion of privacy. Try as he might, Stefan couldn't call the prince by the name Ryker. Not in his own mind, anyway. It was too jarring to see him so disheveled as it was.

But for the moment, his focus was on Nicki—an American, in his care, whom he had completely failed. Why had he not researched her health more thoroughly? Why had he not looked deeper, searched harder? The dossier on her hadn't included a full medical workup—it hadn't needed to. She wasn't the consort of the prince, as Emmaline had been. She merely was the friend, one of a trio of supporting figures in the drama that had swept up the royal family when the Americans had come to the shores of the seaside kingdom less than a month ago. When that drama had begun, he'd barely registered Nicki's presence.

But she'd lied to him. And, worse—he hadn't caught her out in that lie. He didn't know which angered him more.

He narrowed his gaze on her now. She stayed uncharacteristically quiet, and he knew she was buying time. Whether to come up with a suitable answer or to hope he moved off the topic of her, he didn't know. He suspected the latter, however. He suspected that she'd managed her life quite well with that approach, and that most of her friends and associates had allowed her to get away with it. She was always, simply, Nicki—up for anything, ready for action, the first to volunteer and the last to give up.

Eventually, however, she broke under the weight of his glare. With the rumpled Ari doing his best to be invisible she spoke softly, almost dully.

"It's called a bunch of different things," she said. "Familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, inherited cardiomyopathy, genetic—but it all means the same condition. Essentially, my heart muscle has the predisposition to…well, to weaken and die. My dad has the condition, my brother too. I was checked out once, when I was eighteen, and I was fine. Really, I was." Her words picked up speed as she seemed to force them all into the open. "But I'm supposed to get checked every six months or something crazy, and it started consuming my whole life. When I got to college, I stopped getting checked. So I honestly don't know how healthy I am. And, well—I worry, of course. But at least I keep living, too." Her eyes flashed toward him. "I feel fine though. I do. I mean, I passed out, but I'm fine."

"You do that a lot? Pass out?" Stefan kept his words short and to the point, if only to keep a handle on his fury. At himself, at her, at the gods for allowing someone so vivacious, so full of life to suffer such an insidious threat.

"No!" she shook her head firmly. "Seriously, no. I—I got dehydrated today, and I couldn't seem to catch back up."

"And you dropped your water bottle." Stefan passed his hand over his eyes. "I should have given you mine." Anger and a need for answers swamped him, but the car was already slowing, the lights, smells, and sounds of the marina filling the limo as they cruised toward the yacht. He'd have time to grill Nicki later. And then make sure she got checked out the first moment possible.

He understood the idea of not wanting to live with constant fear. But fear could be managed. The unknown couldn't.

Stefan glanced at Ari and tried again to gently jostle a memory. "You're comfortable traveling with us, Mr. Stavros? You don't need to contact anyone?"

Now Ari's expression turned a bit wan. "There's no one here who will miss me," he said. A look of stark terror crossed his face as a sudden realization dawned. "I don't have a wife or anything, do I? Or a girlfriend—children?"

His anguish was so immediate that Stefan's heart twisted, and Nicki's face softened with understanding and shared pain. To forget everything...

"No," Stefan said quietly. "You weren't married, and to my knowledge had no steady girlfriend. Your work kept you busy. You had no children either."

"Thank God." Ari sank his head back against the limo seat. "I don't know how long I've been gone, exactly. It was summer when I was taken, and it's summer again—that's as close as I can get."

"Almost exactly a year, yes," Stefan supplied, then tempered his words at Ari's wan expression. "But now you're going home."

The car stopped. Stefan stepped out of the limo, then handed out Nicki, his gaze warning her to stay quiet as Ari emerged from the car. She nodded, though she was clearly confused, and she didn't object when he held out his hand for hers.

Good. He didn't think he was going to let go of Nicki Clark any time soon. She'd have to get used to that idea.