“I haven’t decided.” A lie. There were a thousand emotions swirling through her right now, but disappointment wasn’t one of them. “I saw you die.”

“You saw me shot and fall to the ground. There is a difference.”

Not to her. That night was forever etched in her brain. The roar of the helicopter, the way the wind whipped up by the blades slapped her. She’d been crying, screaming, afraid. And then the gunshots. Diego had staggered back before falling. The world had slowed to just that moment, as he hit the ground and the blood poured out of him.

She’d yelled for the pilot to take her back. She’d tried to jump out of the helicopter, but someone had held her in place. She’d strained and clawed but hadn’t been able to break free. They’d flown over Calandria. She remembered staring down at the bright lights, blurry through her tears, knowing that the hole his death had left in her heart would never heal.

“Mia?” He touched her arm.

His voice jerked her back to the present. She pressed her hand on his shoulder and shoved him back. “Dammit, Diego, you lied about dying? You lied and let me suffer all this time and never once thought maybe you should drop me a note saying ‘Hey, not as dead as you’d think’? I mourned you. I didn’t think I was ever going to recover.”

She wanted to hurt him the way she’d been hurt. She could handle anything but betrayal and being played for a fool. She wanted to demand to know why he hadn’t come after her, but she couldn’t seem to ask that. Maybe because his sudden return from the dead illustrated the possibility that he hadn’t loved her as much as she’d loved him.

Or maybe he hadn’t loved her at all.

“Was this just a game?” she demanded. “Let’s jerk around the American girl. It will be so much fun.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he said, staring into her eyes. “I swear. I wanted to tell you the truth. I left Calandria to find you. It took me some time to learn your real name and then to convince your government to give me any information about you.”