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And would mine be as dark as his?
“I asked Roman to run a paternity test on Effie, Lucia.”
“I don’t want to know.”
She started to stand but then realized she couldn’t without my help. Which was precisely why I’d laid her on one of the lounge chairs rather than sitting her on a chair.
I touched her arm. “You have to know.”
She closed her eyes and reopened them after a minute but remained silent, waiting.
“Luke isn’t her father.”
From the look on her face, I had the feeling she knew that.
“She carries DNA from my family.” Christ, was I saying this out loud?
A tear rolled down each of Lucia’s cheeks, and I knew she knew.
“They’re testing Dominic’s DNA now. We’ll know for sure soon whether Dominic Benedetti fathered Effie DeMarco.”
It was a long moment before she spoke. I didn’t know how Lucia would take what I told her. On the one hand, she’d seen enough evidence to suspect the truth. She’d seen it herself before I told it. On the other hand, Isabella was still her sister, and I was still the enemy’s son. I was her keeper. The man who’d signed a contract, claiming ownership of her.
“What do you want out of this, Salvatore? When all is said and done, what do you want?”
I’d been straddling the seat and now… I lay back and looked out across the pool toward the forest. It was so quiet here. So still. So peaceful.
I turned back to her. “I want to live a quiet life. I don’t want to look over my shoulder at every turn. I don’t want to see an enemy in every set of eyes I meet, every hand I shake. I want the people I love to be safe. I want them be happy.” Strange. Six months ago, I would have added ‘I want my brother to be alive’ into that list, but something had shifted. Somehow, I’d come to accept that he was gone. Not the cruelty or the unfairness of the act, but the knowledge that he was gone. And that my life lay here.
She cleared her throat and blinked her pretty, innocent eyes, casting them somewhere in the space between us. I didn’t take my eyes off her.
Lucia was all the innocence in my life.
She was my redemption.
And I wanted her. Her presence here, us together, as tumultuous as it was, as wrong as I was for keeping her, it saved me. She saved me.
And that was why I would keep my promise and release her once I could. Once I knew she would be safe and out of harm’s way.
“What do you want, Lucia?”
She met my gaze, shrugged her shoulders, and gave me a tiny but sad smile. “Same things, I guess.”
“You’ll have them. I promise.”
Another promise to her. Another one I didn’t know I could keep. But I would try. I would try every day up until my last breath to give her what she wanted. A life. Simple, peaceful, beautiful.
Like her.
It was in that moment I realized I loved her. Somewhere, somehow, I’d fallen in love with her.
But my debt to her was greater than anything I felt, any hurt or loss I’d experience. And because of that debt, I would never say those words aloud, not to her, not to anyone. She’d been locked away most of her life. All of her brief adult life. I was the only man she’d known—a cruel trick of fate. If I said the words, I knew what would happen. Lucia would mistake survival for love. Because right now, she needed me to survive. To survive my family. To survive the war that I’d mistakenly thought over. I would stay alive for her. I would fight for her. I would do everything in my power to save her. Nothing else mattered, not even my own life. Everything from this point forward would be for her.
“I want to make love to you, Lucia.”
She looked at me, confused, although her body began to prepare. I could see it in the slight dilation of her pupils, the stiffening of her nipples, the parting of her lips.
“I want you to want it. I want you to give me the word. Up until now, I’ve taken it from you.”
“Salvatore—”
I held up my hand. “I’ve taken it.”
She touched my arm. “Salvatore—”
I moved to stop her from speaking. She combed her fingers into the hair at my forehead and tugged.
“You’re so damn stubborn.”
She leaned in to kiss me, her mouth soft, her tongue sweet as it probed my lips. She pulled back and looked at me, swallowing.
“I want it. I want you. Make love to me, Salvatore.”
I wrapped her in my arms and kissed her, lifting her up as I stood, cradling her to me, carrying her to the door of my study. Our lips still locked, we entered. I took her to the couch, sat her on it, and kneeled before her between her spread knees. Her eyes on mine, she pulled first her top, then her sports bra off, her round breasts settling into place, the nipples already tight. I worked her other shoe off her foot and then slipped my fingers into the waistband of her shorts and panties. She lifted up a little, allowing me to drag them down and off so she sat before me naked.
