A huge suitcase was standing by the door. Huffing and puffing, Susanna was dragging another one from the suite.
Was she leaving?
Leaving him?
His heart all but stopped, sending a body-shuddering chill down his spine.
“Susanna. Please.”
She glanced up at him. “Care to help? This thing is heavy.”
“Please, don’t.”
The sight of her, as angry as she was, took his breath away. That was the problem—he simply couldn’t breathe without this woman anymore.
He had to keep her. At all costs.
“Don’t go.” He sank to his knees.
She inhaled sharply as he leaned his forehead to her belly. The curve of his front horn fit neatly between her breasts.
“You can’t leave,” he said fervently. “Not now. Not ever. You’re a part of our lives now. I can’t imagine my home without you. How am I supposed to rip you out of my heart if you are my heart? You can’t—”
“Xavran...” She slid her hands down his side horns to cup his cheeks, then tilted his head back, peering into his eyes. “Why would I leave? When next to you is the only place I want to be?”
The dimples appeared on her cheeks with a smile. But it was the deep affection in her eyes that made her expression magical to him. No woman had ever looked like that at him.
She stroked the sharp ridges of his cheekbones with her thumbs. “I’m not going anywhere. I know my sister way too well to be angry with you.”
He climbed to his feet. Still afraid to let go of her, he kept his hands on her waist.
“These aren’t my suitcases. I’m not leaving,” she said. Her expression hardened when she glanced behind him. “Mara is.”
He turned to find her sister strolling their way. Wrapped in one of his towels, her clothes under her arm, she sauntered past them and into the suite.
“You missed your chance, buddy,” she tossed over her shoulder to him.
For some unfathomable reason, Mara obviously believed she was better than him, better than her sister too. Ironically, she’d made it as far as his lap only because he’d been so eager to see Susanna. For one stupid moment, he’d actually believed that Mara could be her.
To him, a barrelful of Maras would never be worth Susanna’s little finger.
“She’s wrong.” He smiled at the woman in his arms. “I haven’t missed it. I’m holding on to my one real chance at happiness with everything I have. And I’m not letting her go.”