Page 121 of Chris

“You kept your promise.”

“I did, yes.”

“No one except Mamá keeps her promises.”

Chris shrugged. “I always will.”

“Can we make a new promise?”

“What is that?”

“That you won’t leave.”

“I don’t need to make that promise.” He smiled, leaning back on the bed with the book already opened in his hands. “I can’t leave, bambina.”

“Why not?”

“People don’t leave things they love, Maria. That’s all.”

“Oh.”

Her soft exclamation echoed in the quiet bedroom.

“Promise to be ours, then?”

Chris nodded as he flipped the page to the beginning in the book. “I can definitely promise that.”

She suckered him into four reads of two books, but he didn’t mind. And by the time he finished, Maria snored away in the bed’s middle, unaware when he slipped out of the bedroom to find her mother.

Valeria made it easy for him, considering she left the bathroom door wide open.

“You know,” Chris murmured, leaning in the doorway to enjoy the sight of Valeria’s tanned legs spattered with bubbles and hanging over the ledge of the tub, “my mother asked me a question earlier.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, about you and Maria.”

A sly, yet still sweet, smile curved her pouty lips when her gaze darted up to his. It was taking every ounce of his willpower to stay where he was, and not slam the door shut, go to her, and take what he wanted.

Somehow, this woman who had once been so confused about her lust and need for sex because of the constant abuse she suffered, could now look like his personal minx ready to torture him with seduction. Chris was more than willing to let her do that, too.

“And what was that question she asked?”

Chris cleared his throat, refusing to let thoughts of his mother into his mind when this beautiful woman was just across the room, naked but for the water and bubbles hiding her curves from his view. “What I planned to do with the two of you, actually.”

Valeria arched a perfect brow. “What does that mean?”

“Better question,” he returned, “what do you plan to do?”

“You.”

“Pardon?”

Her tongue peeked out to wet the seam of her lips as her hand came up from the water, covered in bubbles and dribbling water down her throat as she pointed a delicate finger at him. “You, Chris. I plan to be with you as long as you want me. That’s what you told me on the cliffs, right?”

“It was.”

“And that still stands?”