When he pulls back, his forehead presses to mine. His breath on my lips.
“I’m keeping you.” The words vibrate against my mouth. “That’s not a deal.” His voice is low. Wrecked. Steadier than I’ve ever heard it. “That’s not a negotiation. It’s just the truth.”
My fingers tighten in his shirt. “And if I don’t want to be yours?” I ask because I’m still me. Because the woman who looked at the second most dangerous man in New Orleans and saidtry againneeds this to go both ways.
His thumb traces my cheekbone. His gaze burns into mine from an inch away.
“Then you shouldn’t have saved my mother’s rosary.” My lungs lock. “You shouldn’t have seen me.” His voice drops lower. “When everyone else just sees a killer, you saw what was underneath. And you kept looking until I couldn’t hide from it.”
“You shouldn’t have stayed.” His forehead against mine. His palm on my cheek. The jasmine and the amber light and the garden where a woman from Palermo once put seeds in the ground and chose to make things grow. “You did.” A whisper. “All of it. So this is it. You and me. And that’s the end of it.”
I let go of his shirt. Frame his jaw in my palms, his stubble rough against my skin.
“Say it again,” I tell him.
“I’m keeping you, Isabella.”
“And you’re mine.” I say it like it’s a law of physics. “That’s the end of it.”
For a long moment, nothing happens. Then his mouth changes. A pulling at the corners. A lifting. The faintest rearrangement of muscles that haven’t been used for this purpose in years.
Lorenzo Santoro is smiling.
It transforms him. The hard lines soften. Dimples cut into both cheeks, deep and impossible on a face built for violence. The scar along his cheekbone catches the last of the light.
My vision blurs. I blink and feel the wetness track down my cheeks.
“I see you,” I whisper.
Somewhere in my chest, the girl who lived on cold coffee and paranoia and the specific loneliness of being the only person looking for her sister is watching this happen and not quite believing it. She keeps checking the exits. Old habit. There aren’t any out here. Just roses and the man I was supposed to use and the terrifying possibility that I get to keep this.
He kisses me again. Slower. JustI’m here. You’re here. That’s enough.
I slide from his jaw to his neck. He gathers me against him, and I press my forehead to his chest where his heartbeat has steadied into a strong, even rhythm.
“Don’t let go,” I say.
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
My eyes shut. His chin rests on top of my head. His thumb traces slow circles on my shoulder blade.
“Stella mia,”he says into my hair. So quiet the words are more breath than sound.
My star.
“Your mother would have hated me,” I say into his chest.
“No.”
“I have a tattoo and I swear too much and I once ate cereal for dinner seven nights in a row.”
“She would have loved you.” His voice roughens. “She would have known exactly what I needed before I did.”
The garden holds us. The jasmine blooms. The evening goes quiet and golden and still. Sofia is upstairs, asleep in the room next to mine. Alive. Healing. Surrounded by people who will protect her.
