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“Suppose we say no? Suppose we refuse you permission to marry her? Or even to ask her? Suppose we tell you to get the hell out of here and never look back? Then what?”
Enough, Draco thought, and he stood straighter, his dark eyes level with theirs.
“Then,” he said quietly, “I am afraid I will have to take you on, one by one, and when I am the only one of us left standing—and I will be, in an honest fight—I will go to my Anna and put my life and my heart in her hands.”
The silence that followed was surely the longest of Draco’s life. Then Anna’s brothers smiled. Grinned. Shook his hand and introduced themselves, and when the introductions were over, they wished him good luck and sent him on his way.
Autumn Peach was too dark, Russet Red was too deep and Pumpkin Patch was just plain insipid.
That was all Anna would talk about when she stopped crying, never mind Izzy’s persistent questioning, and finally Izzy threw up her hands and said okay, fine, enough was enough. She’d go to the hardware store and get some more color samples.
“You’re a pigheaded mule,” she told Anna, and Anna tried to laugh at the impossible image, but she couldn’t.
Laughing seemed out of the question.
At least she’d gotten rid of Izzy for a while. A half hour would give her time to regroup.
Unfortunately, Izzy had obviously decided leaving was a mistake, because the doorbell rang not five minutes later. Anna rubbed her eyes with her fists, pasted a smile on her face and went to the door.
“No,” she said as she flung it open, “I will not compromise on Tangerine Twist ….” The words died on her tongue. “Draco?” she said, and two things happened at once. Her hand balled into a fist so she could hit him, and Draco said her name and reached for her, and after a hesitation that surely lasted no more than a heartbeat, Anna sobbed her lover’s name and went into his arms.
He kissed her, over and over. Her forehead. Her eyes. The tip of her nose. Her mouth. Oh, her mouth, even sweeter than he remembered.
“Anna,” he said brokenly, “Anna, bellissima, mio amante Anna, ti amo, ti adoro!”
Anna didn’t speak much Italian, but a woman didn’t have to speak the language to understand any of those words.
“I love you, too,” she whispered. “I adore you. I’ve missed you so terribly!”
“Sì. I have missed you, too. My heart, my life have been so empty …”
“That night,” Anna said, “that awful night …”
“I was afraid to lose you. And afraid to try and keep you.” Draco laughed as he framed her face in his hands. “I always thought love was a foolish fairy tale.”
Anna smiled, even as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I thought it was just a way of keeping a woman under a man’s thumb.”
Draco kissed her again.
?
??We were both wrong, bellissima.”
“Yes. Oh yes, we were.”
Draco took a deep breath. And dropped to one knee.
“Anna. Beloved,” he said, “will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
The smile that curved Anna’s lips was, Draco knew, the most beautiful sight a man would ever see.
“Yes,” she said, “oh, yes. I will.”
He reached in his pocket, took out a ring and slipped it on her finger. It was a perfect copy of the Valenti crest, done in sapphires and diamonds.
Anna looked from her hand to her lover. Her eyes filled again.
