Eric exhaled slowly. “Maybe she thought you’d try to stop her. Maybe she was afraid.”
“She didn’t need to hide it from me,” Ainsley snapped. “If she just wanted to find a donor, I’d have helped. But she planned this whole thing alone. Even when I was recovering from amnesia, she was plotting her next escape.”
Ainsley fell silent, staring at the floor like it held answers he hadn’t found yet.
“I’ve built empires with less effort than it took her to lie to me,” he said finally. “When she promised to return from Waikiki, she’d already decided to do this. If she couldn’t find a donor, she’d give Richard her own marrow. She was ready to die.”
Eric leaned forward. “Ainsley… don’t blame yourself.”
But Ainsley wasn’t listening. “Three years ago, she escaped me with careful planning. This time
