He stares at me, then laughs harder, one hand coming up to cover his mouth for a second because, apparently, the idea of me shopping for islands has finally broken him. I’d be offended if his laugh didn’t go through me like sunlight.
He shakes his head and steps away, pacing once because that’s what he does when he’s trying not to grin too much at me.
“We’ll work something out,” he says, still laughing under his breath.
I don’t answer immediately because I’m already doing it. Working it out. Distances. Flight paths. Ownership structures. Shell companies. Supply lines. Security. Climate. Staff.
I’m halfway through deciding which legal name to bury the purchase under and whether a Mediterranean route would be too obvious before I realize he’s watching me with a very particular expression.
“You’re actually making plans,” he says.
“Yes,” I say, my voice flat.
His smile softens, but something more serious settles under it. “Nikolaj. You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The one where your face goes blank because you’re building an empire in your head.”
“It wouldn’t be an empire,” I say automatically. “One island.”
That makes him laugh again. “That is not the part of that sentence I’m objecting to.”
I almost tell him he’s being dramatic. Then I see the look in his eyes shift, the laughter gentling all the way into something warmer and quieter, and I realize too late that he’s reading something else in me.
The worry.
Of course, he sees it. He always did. Even when I thought I hid it better, even when I was young and cruel and convinced that wanting him made me dangerous rather than exposed. He always saw the exact point where my arrogance thinned out while the real fear underneath started bleeding through.
He reaches out and caresses my cheek, touching me like I’m some skittish creature he doesn’t want to startle, thumb brushing once over my cheekbone.
“Mio re,” he says, so softly it nearly undoes me on the spot, “I’ve been waiting eight years. I will wait however long I need to until I see you again.”
I should say something filthy or cutting. Something that gets us back on familiar ground before the tenderness starts feeling too large to survive. I cup his face with both hands, and what comes out is bigger than that and far less controlled.
“I love you.”
The words land in the room with all the force of a gunshot and all the quietude of a prayer.
Vincenzo’s whole body goes still, eyes widening enough to show the crack in him before the emotion hits. It moves across his face in one devastating wave.
Shock first. Then pain. Then joy so raw it’s almost ugly.
His eyes go glassy immediately, and my heart lurches in panic because it is not how I pictured this. I didn’t picture it at all, which was probably the point. I just knew I needed him to hear it from me, cleanly, before anything else got in the way.
“Oh, don’t,” I say before I can stop myself. “Don’t cry,lyubumiy.”
The plea comes out more desperate than teasing, and the sight of him looking at me like this is enough to make me tighten my grip on his face, thumbs brushing uselessly under his eyes as if I can stop the tears by making contact first.
He laughs once, half-breath, half-break. “I never thought I’d hear that again.”
I brush my thumbs under his eyes again. “Well,” I say, trying for steadiness and landing somewhere near reverent instead, “I suppose you’d better get used to hearing it again.”
A soft laugh slips out of him at that, and he shakes his head once like I’m impossible, and he hates that he loves it. I hold his face, look at him, and feel the full gravity of the moment settle in.
Not Vintermoor. Not the wreck of youth. Not memory pulling old phrases up from some buried place. This is now. Me, knowing exactly what I’m saying and choosing to say it firstbecause if I don’t hand him that certainty with both hands, I’ll hate myself for another eight years.
“Korol’ moego serdtsa,” I murmur, the old language wrapping around the words more naturally than any title ever has. “Don’t look at me like that or I’ll drag you back into bed.”
