“And what will you say to him?”

“I’ll tell him…” She stumbled. “I’ll tell him that I want Yamato back.”

“And that you won’t work for him any longer? And he’ll go along with you? Just like that?”

Sakura tried to retort, but bit her lip and looked away. Milton knew that she was no fool. She knew that there was nothing that she could say that she could honestly believe. She knew that he was right.

“I came to Bali to get something from Victoria,” Milton said, “and that’s all been taken care of now. I don’t need to be here anymore. Regardless of whether you want my help or not, I haven’t been to Tokyo for a while and I’d like to visit. If you’re going that way anyway, then what’s wrong with me hitching a ride?”

He saw her resolve weakening, but still she fought it. “I’m grateful for everything that you and Victoria have done, but I can’t ask you for more. You’ve done enough.”

“I haven’t,” he replied. “Not yet.”

Sakura frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“I still have amends to make.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m going to be as honest as I can with you,” he said. “You deserve to know—it’s only fair.”

He leaned forward on his lounger and Sakura sat forward slightly, despite herself, listening.

“I used to work for the British government,” he said. “So did Victoria—that’s how we know each other.”

“She told me, but she wouldn’t say what you did.”

“I fixed problems. And, while doing that, I did some things that I’m not proud of.”

Sakura watched him carefully as he spoke.

“Some of the problems I was asked to fix required violent solutions.”

“What? You hurt people?”

He nodded.

“Killed them?”

He nodded again.

“How… how many? One? Two?”

“More.”

He looked right at her as he admitted it, and he felt a sense of trepidation, a fearfulness that his honesty might sour the way that she looked at him. He knew himself well enough by now to know that the image he presented to the world—tough, resourceful, capable—was a façade. It was a carapace behind which he hid his vulnerability. He knew that she found him attractive, and found, to his surprise, that he didn’t want her to feel differently. But he had to be honest with her. He remembered what Lucas had said during the meeting: he couldn’t pretend to be able to make a better decision for her than she could herself. She had to choose.