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“Oh, please. You more than made it clear that the only role you want to play in my life is from the shadows.” Frustrated, I pushed my tangled hair out of my face and walked to the window overlooking a fountain in the back courtyard of the hotel. But I couldn’t enjoy the beauty before me.
“You think we can have anything outside of the shadows?” His voice came from right behind me, making me jump because I hadn’t heard him move. “You think your family will allow us to be together? If I knew they would, if I knew you would be happy being with me despite all the hell they will give you for our relationship, I would make it happen.”
“What does that mean?” I whispered as I turned to face him, unable to keep my voice from quivering with longing for things he made it sound like I would never have. “Why wouldn’t they allow us to be together?”
He cupped my face in his hands, his eyes looking into mine with so much emotion, it was hard to breathe for a moment. “My name is Gian Fontana. My father is the one who gave your cousin Lexa her scar.”
I saw the pain in his eyes when he said the words, heard the torment in his voice that he couldn’t hide from me. I covered his hands with mine. “You think that would stop me from loving you?”
“Yes,” he rasped out, his eyes lowering.
“Well, it doesn’t.” His gaze snapped back to mine. “I hate the man who did that to Lexa, but that man isn’t you, G. You’ve saved me over and over again. You would never harm me or allow anyone else to even try.” I pressed into his touch. “I’ll make Lexa and everyone else see that you are a good man.”
“And if they don’t want to hear what you say?” He lowered his head until our gazes were even, his breath brushing over my lips, he was so close. “Will you be able to choose, precious? Because that is what it will come down to. You will have to decide who you are willing to live without.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes. “And you think I won’t choose you?”
“I know it.”
“You don’t know anything,” I growled at him. “I love you. That doesn’t stop just because my family might not like us being together. They don’t get to choose who I love or spend my life with. No one does but me.”
I’d just told him I loved him for the second time. And once again, I was met with silence that broke my heart. But I saw his pupils dilate, the way his nostrils flared with pleasure at my confession. I didn’t know why he wasn’t telling me how he felt, but I could clearly see how much he liked it when I said those three powerful words to him.
With a man like Enzo Fontana raising him, I couldn’t imagine him being told or even shown he was loved. It hurt my heart to think of my G growing up with no one to give him the same affection my family had surrounded my siblings and me with. Even as intimidated as I sometimes was of Aunt Raven, I always knew she loved me.
A tear spilled down my cheek before I could stop it, my heart breaking for the boy who didn’t have anyone to love him as he should have been. “I love you,” I repeated and was rewarded with his labored inhale. His hands actually shook as they continued to cup my face. His silence didn’t hurt nearly as bad this time, and I stepped into his space. “Do you want to know who I can’t live without, who it would kill me if I had to give up? You, Gian. It will always be you.”
“Don’t say things you don’t mean, Monroe.” His voice was harsh, but I saw the plea in his eyes.
Two more tears broke free, and I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I love you,” I sobbed, pressing my tear-soaked face into his chest. “Please don’t make me live without you. I need you. Only you.”
“Don’t cry,” he implored in his raspy voice. “Please, precious. Your tears are the only torture I can’t withstand.”
Hearing the pain in his voice, I tried to stop the flow of tears. Hiccupping, I turned away from him, wrapping my arms around myself as I attempted to regain control.
With a groan that sounded like it was being ripped from his throat, Gian wrapped his arms around me from behind. I heard his deep inhale, felt his chest expanding as he drew my scent inside himself, his entire body seeming to shudder. “No one has said they loved me since I was six. I remember the last time it happened like it was yesterday. My mom tucked me into bed, told me she loved me more than anything in the world, and then went into her room, and I never saw her again. My father killed her that night.”
I gasped, my heart shattering at the pictures he was putting in my head.
“She was the sweetest, most amazing woman I’d ever met. The only thing she’d ever done wrong was fall in love with a monster.” He pressed his forehead to the back of my head, breathing in deeply. “I swore I wouldn’t turn into a man like my father. Vowed the day she was buried that I would make him pay for what he did. That vow died when he hurt Lexa because your family kil
led him. But then I had to live with Carlo Santino, and I realized my father was a walk in the park compared to that bastard.”
I tried to turn in his arms, needing to see his face, to hold him, but he tightened his hold, refusing to allow me to move.
“When Carlo started watching Lexa, he also put surveillance on you and your sister.” I felt his lips in my hair, his slow inhale, as if he were trying to calm himself. “He wanted to give Lexa to me as a birthday present, the sick fuck. But I knew I couldn’t let him touch you. You were so little, so fucking precious, and all I could think was I couldn’t save my mother, but I could save you.”
“Gian.”
“Shh,” he breathed at my ear before kissing my neck, causing me to shiver. “Please, just listen.”
I gave a small nod, and he tightened his arms almost to the point of pain for a moment before easing ever so slightly. “I only wanted to protect you, I swear. I didn’t expect to be so entranced with you as the years passed. You became an obsession for me, precious. The last thought I had before closing my eyes at night, the reason I got out of bed every morning. I’ve ached for you, and I hated myself for it because you were too young for me to be having such thoughts about.”
“When?” I whispered, my stomach quivering at the need I heard in his voice. “When did you start wanting me?”
“The summer you turned sixteen. You ran around in those damn cutoff shorts and that fucking cami with no bra on, and I nearly killed all those boys who wouldn’t stop gawking at you.” He sounded tortured, and for some reason, that gave me a sense of power I’d never felt before.
I turned in his arms, and he let me this time. My arms went around his neck, my fingers stroking through the short hair there. He lowered his lashes in pleasure at my touch, masking the hunger banked in their depths. “I’ve always been yours, Gian. There was never any reason to be jealous. I’ve waited for you. Never even let another guy kiss me, because all I want is you.”
