“Go?” Divine asked with a frown. “Go where?”
“You’ll see,” Marcus said, squeezing her hand. “It’s a surprise.”
Divine frowned over that as they arrived at the balloon game stall. Marcus gave the game agent tickets for darts and they both began tossing them at the balloons. She had always considered herself a good aim, and she was, but the balloons weren’t fully blown up and the darts sometimes just bounced off them until she began to put more strength in the throw. Marcus didn’t miss a single balloon with his darts, and he was fast. He was working on his third round of darts by the time she finished her first. She stood back and just watched then, waiting for him to tire. Divine didn’t realize he was working toward a goal until he suddenly stopped and put his head together with the game agent who nodded, turned, and retrieved a little brown bear with a heart on its stomach and handed it over.
Marcus turned and offered it to her at once. “For you.”
Divine stared at the offering and then slowly reached for it. She couldn’t say how many times she’d witnessed this scene, or something like it on the midway; a male winning a prize for his girl. She’d always thought it was sweet and had felt a pang of envy. Now she had her own prize, won for her by Marcus.
“We’ll find someone to sew ‘Marcus and Basha’ on it with the year,” he announced with a crooked smile, and when she blushed, caught her hand and led her along the midway.
They were heading through the gates to the parking lot when Divine suddenly registered what he’d said. She came to an abrupt halt, sure she was as pale as a sheet. It certainly felt like all the blood had left her face.
“What?” Marcus asked with concern when he glanced around and saw her expression.
“Marcus and Basha?” she asked, trying not to panic.
He nodded. “Vincent, Jackie, Tiny, and Mirabeau can all read you, Divine. They can read both of us. But Mirabeau was the first one to pick up on your real name being Basha.”
She tried to tug her hand free of his, but he held her fast.
“I know Madge has your motorcycle and you planned to run away on it, but I can’t allow that,” he said quietly, and then caught her other hand as she swung it at him. When she then tried a front kick, he turned her abruptly and slammed her up against a van they stood beside. “I can’t allow that because there isn’t room for me on the motorcycle and I’m going with you.”
“What?” Divine asked with disbelief, suddenly going still.
“You’re my life mate, Basha—”
“Don’t call me that,” she interrupted sharply.
“All right,” he said patiently, “Then you’re my life mate, Divine,” Marcus corrected solemnly and then added, “Where you go, I go. Your future is my future. Your fate my own.” Releasing her hands, he cupped her face gently and whispered, “I’m running away with you. That’s the surprise. I borrowed the SUV Tiny and Mirabeau came here in. They think I’m taking you to dinner, and I am, but then we’re running away together. We can go to Italy. My family is powerful. They can protect you from Lucian if necessary. Or we can go somewhere else if you want. But you aren’t going alone.”
Divine stared at him wide-eyed for a moment. In all the scenarios she’d imagined with Marcus, not once had she dared imagine this one. For a moment it seemed like she held the brass ring in her hand, but then her conscience kicked in. She’d be sentencing him to life as a Gypsy, always moving, never still, no home. And she’d be sentencing him to a life without children too, because she would never bring another child into the life she’d been forced to lead. She couldn’t do that to an innocent baby, and she couldn’t do it to Marcus either. No one should have to live the life she did, always running and hiding, always looking over their shoulder, always scared.
Sighing, Divine lowered her head and shook it sadly. “That’s sweet, Marcus. But I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking,” Marcus said, taking her hand and drawing her away from the van to lead her through the parking lot before adding, “I’m telling you how it’s going to be. I’ve waited twenty-five hundred years for a life mate, Divine. I’m not letting you slip away now.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said quietly. “You don’t even know who I am.”
“I just told you who you were not minutes ago, Basha Argeneau, remember,” he said dryly, pausing beside an SUV. He opened the door for her to get in.
Divine stopped beside him though and faced him grimly. “I’m a rogue.”
“You’re thought to possibly be a rogue,” Marcus corrected firmly. “I don’t think you are. But,” he added quickly when she started to speak, “if you are, you must have had a good reason for whatever you did, or you were confused, or . . . something,” he finished weakly and then shook his head and said with more certainty, “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”
“Marcus, I—”
“Lucian is expected here this evening,” he interrupted, drawing her up short. “I’m not sure what time he’ll get here, but I’d rather we were gone before he arrived. You can tell me everything you want to. I want to hear it, just not right here, right now. Okay? Please? Just get into the SUV. We’ll go have dinner and you can tell me whatever you want.”
Divine hesitated one more moment, but then got into the SUV. Lucian was an old bogeyman for her; avoiding him was kind of priority number one. She remained silent as Marcus walked around and got in the driver’s seat, but once he’d started the engine and steered them out of the lot and onto the road, she said, “This isn’t a conversation we should have in a public place.”
“Okay,” Marcus said calmly. “Where?”
Divine hesitated briefly, considering their options. A hotel would work, but she wanted to be somewhere crowded and busy. It would help her slip away quickly and quietly. “How far are we from Vegas?”
“A little more than two hours I think,” Marcus said quietly. “Did you want to go there?”
“Yes, please,” Divine murmured, trying to make plans and contingency plans in her head. There was no way she was letting Marcus throw away his life to be with her, and the only way to stop that was by telling him everything. Once he knew the truth, he wouldn’t want anything to do with her, she was sure. The problem was, he might then want to turn her behind in to Lucian to redeem himself. She needed a plan to avoid that. As depressing as the future seemed to her without Marcus in it, she wasn’t suicidal quite yet.
“Vegas it is then,” Marcus said, relaxing in his seat. “It’ll be handy, actually. We can talk, sort things out, then visit one of those little chapels and get married while in town.”
Divine blinked as those words hit her, and then simply closed her eyes. The man might know her name, but he hadn’t accepted who she was. He’d be singing a different song once he knew the truth.
Nineteen
“Why the Luxor?” Marcus asked as he unlocked the door to their room and ushered her inside. “It’s not exactly in the thick of things here.”
“That’s why,” Divine said, sounding amused as she glanced around the room and then moved into the bathroom to look it over.
Marcus glanced around as well, and managed not to wrinkle his nose. The room was in need of refurbishing. The carpet was worn, the furniture too, and the wallpaper had to be a good thirty years old. If this was the state of the rooms, he wasn’t sure he wanted to try the food.
“I picked it because it’s near the end of the strip and less busy,” Divine explained, coming out of the bathroom. “And it reminds me of my youth.”
He arched an eyebrow at that. The Luxor was a huge pyramid with a one-hundred-and-ten-foot re-creation of the Great Sphinx of Giza. “You were in Egypt during your youth? Did your parents live in Egypt?”