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He ignored the tease, lifting her chin with his finger. “So,” he said roughly, “you have the unvarnished truth now. Your human connection project is complete. Tell me if you still want me, Mina, because if you say yes now, it’s forever.”
“Do you have to ask?” she said softly. “Your human side only makes you more attractive, Nate Brunswick. And I was already falling over myself for you the first time I met you.”
The tension in his face eased. “You were ridiculously sexy in your maid outfit.”
“And you were very, very improper.”
He brought his mouth down to hers. “You loved every minute of it.”
“Sì. I did.”
He kissed her then, a long, slow kiss that cemented the promises they’d made to each other under a clear, star-strewn Paris sky. That they would rise above their pasts and grasp this chance at happiness with both hands. Two survivors who’d learned that destiny was not a foregone conclusion—it was all in the choices they made.
She hadn’t been wrong, Mina thought, wrapping her arms around her husband’s neck and kissing him back. She had been so very, very right.
She was a gladiator, after all. Faith was a prerequisite.
EPILOGUE
New York—nine months later
THE HISTORIC THIRTEENTH-CENTURY Gothic cathedral on Manhattan’s west side glimmered with an almost ethereal light as the late-afternoon sun pressed against its elaborate, showstopping stained glass windows.
It was almost enough to match the incandescent glow filling Mina as Nate slid a diamond-studded eternity band on her finger to join the ring he’d placed there a year ago on that tumultuous, emotion-filled day in Palermo which had changed their lives.
This time as she stepped toward him and lifted her face for his kiss, the reconfirming of their vows complete, there were no nerves involved, no questions about her future, only the butterflies in her stomach that came with a kiss from her husband, butterflies she suspected would never go away.
“Enough sunshine and rainbows for you?” Nate murmured against her lips.
“Sì,” she returned huskily, curving her fingers around his jaw and lifting up on tiptoe for his kiss.
The priest coughed as the expression of affection went on a fraction too long. Laughter danced in Nate’s eyes as he lifted his head. “Have to up my game.”
Mina stepped back, the glow inside of her almost too much to contain. The ceremony concluded, she collected two-month-old Giovanni Vincenzo Brunswick from Natalia to make their walk down the aisle.
The Di Sione clan looked on approvingly on their left, a miraculous feat to have them all in one place. Mina’s mother, her nonna, a handful of her cousins and Celia sat on the right, the intimate, private ceremony to cement their vows what she and Nate had both wanted.
A reception followed at the Brunswicks’ Westchester estate, which did not feature a white picket fence, but did include lavish gardens little Giovanni could someday play in, and a koi pond Mina loved. Much wine was consumed and a great deal of laughter filled the fairy-tale gardens as the Di Siones and Mastrantinos mixed, her mother thankfully on her best behavior.
It warmed Mina’s heart to watch her husband with his half siblings. He was gradually letting his guard down—forging deeper relationships with all of them, particularly Alex, who did seem so much in character like Nate. The party lasted into the wee hours, until finally, her husband gave the guests some pointed glances, everyone headed for their cars and they went inside to relieve the nanny from her duties.
Giovanni, so very tiny Mina had been terrified to touch him at first, was sound asleep, his fist shoved in his mouth. Nate ran a finger down the baby’s cheek, the glitter in his eyes saying everything he found it hard to verbalize. He had fallen instantly in love with their son, would sometimes stand there fascinated, watching him until Mina had to call him to bed.
But not tonight. “I thought they were never going to leave,” he growled, switching off the light and propelling her from the room.
“They were having fun.”
She toed off her shoes in their room, her heartbeat kicking up at the look of primal hunger on her husband’s face. Stepping toward him, she presented him with her back so he could unzip her dress.
His fingers dispensed with the zipper, his mouth consuming a mouthful of her bare shoulder. “Are you exhausted?”
Usually she was. She’d wanted to be a hands-on mother despite the permanent position she’d taken in the Brunswick Developments marketing department, which had meant collapsing into bed at night for the last few weeks since she’d been back to work—weeks in which the doctor had finally cleared her and Nate to be intimate again. Not ideal when Nate’s primary strength wasn’t patience.
&
nbsp; She turned around and met her husband’s hungry gaze. “No.”
“Good,” he said roughly as he pushed the dress off her shoulders to pool in a puddle of silk at her feet. “Because I am definitely on edge.”
