Where the Library Hides (Secrets of the Nile #2)

by Isabel Ibañez

For the readers who stayed up all night agonizing over the epilogue in What the River Knows: This one is dedicated to you.

I loved him with my whole heart, despite my head telling me to have better sense. But I loved him in a way that meant forever. I hadn’t known for sure until this moment, as I stared into his face, which was somehow vulnerable and remote all at once. Terror gripped me. I’d never felt so stricken, so raw, so exposed.

“Why did you kiss me in the tomb?” I demanded. “Because I didn’t want to die without having done it once,” he said immediately. “At least.”

“Darling, I don’t give a damn about her.” He leaned forward and held my gaze. His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “I’m still waiting for your answer, Inez.” A zip of electricity went through me, and I fought to keep myself from trembling. It was a big decision—the biggest of my life. “Are you sure?” “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.” “Let’s get married, then,” I said, breathless.

I was dressed for mourning. And perhaps, a part of me did grieve.

“In the utter chaos of my life, you are the only thing that makes sense. You asked me what my reasons are, and I don’t know all of them yet, but I do know one important thing.” He took a shaky breath, his eyes never leaving my face, and the raw emotion lurking in their depths almost keeled me over. “You’re the one I want, Inez.” My lips parted. His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Please make me the happiest man on this earth.”

I hope you are not lying , Whit!!!!

“How on earth did you know what I was thinking?” “Because I know you.”

“Inez, I will honor and protect you and lay down my life for you. In sickness and in health, I will be by your side.”

“And I promise I will never expect obedience from you.”

But Whit stepped between us. “You can yell at me,” he said quietly. “You can be disappointed, feel betrayed. But you do not raise your voice at my wife. If you want someone to battle, you battle with me, Ricardo.”

I hadn’t been able to look at myself in the mirror since I’d married Inez.

Why not

“You care for this girl,” my brother said in a marveling tone. “Your wife.” “If I did,” I said, “I wouldn’t have married her.”

“If I can do something without you,” I said simply, “I will.”

Ouch

I hadn’t just lost a friend or a wife. I’d lost Inez’s love. Something I didn’t know that I’d had.

“Inez, you are the love of my life,” Whit roared. “I will not lose you now.”

“Whit!” I screamed. “If you die, I will never forgive you.”

“I have never been shot before,” he said in a marveling tone. “I really don’t like it.”

My mother had left me to my fate. But Whit had saved mine. Twice.

“Inez,” he whispered. “You want to know why I saved your life? I can think of no better act to show how much I love you. This world would not be the same without you in it, and I don’t ever want to find out what that feels like. If I have to follow you across a desert, I will. If I have to jump into the Nile, again and again, I will. If I have to leap in front of a thousand bullets, I will.” He closed his eyes, breath shuddering. “I will always love you.”

“Inez, at first I wanted to find the sheet to get out of a marriage I didn’t want. Now, more than anything, I want to find the Chrysopoeia to save a marriage I desperately want.”

“Who knows where the library hides?”

I would burn the world twice over to save her life.

“The only thing that does is you, us, our family. You are the love of my life, and I will not lose you now.”

To defeat him, she became like him.