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And everything poured out of him. “I never had a heart, but you created one inside me. A heart that was made to love you, that can’t survive without you. So if you want me alive, you’ll have to say yes.”
She burst into tears again. “God, Antonio, yes...yes. But...”
“No buts.”
“I was just going to say—but I think you should slow down, take more time to think about this. After you do—”
His lips silenced hers. “I can’t slow down, and I won’t think about it. I want nothing else but you. I now realize everything in my life has been leading up to this. This moment. This union. You.” He took her in another compulsive kiss. “So never say ‘but’ again.”
“Even if I say that no word remains after what you said ‘but’ yes?”
“You can say anything, as long as it ends in yes.”
And for the rest of the night, she said almost nothing but yes. She whimpered, whispered and screamed it. She said yes to him, to them, and to everything their future together would bring.
* * *
“You have to tell us, Lili.”
Lili turned to the redhead who regarded her with such warm curiosity. Scarlett Kuroshiro, the wife of Raiden, one of Antonio’s brothers, was unearthly beautiful. Her husband, who sat beside her, clearly as besotted with her as she appeared to be with him, was Japanese by birth and as gorgeous as she was in his own way. But what truly amazed Lili was their year-old baby daughter, who mixed them both into an incredible mixture. Their adopted children, five of them from four to eight years old, were all playing on the grounds of Antonio’s mansion with the other brothers’ kids and their nannies.
“Yes, you have to.” That was Jenan, another brother’s wife, the guy who looked like a genie. Sheikh Numair Al Aswad, the brotherhood’s leader. Jenan looked like she’d walked out of Arabian Nights herself, and actually was a princess. “We must know what you did to Antonio,” she said. “What superpowers do you have?”
Lili smirked. “This coming from the pantheon of gods and goddesses Antonio has for brothers and sisters.”
Everyone laughed. They’d been laughing every time she’d said anything. It was either that Antonio had given them strict orders to be super delighted with her every word, or that her brand of humor tickled them as much as it did him.
“It’s fate.” Rafael, the youngest brother, a Brazilian and another juggernaut, hugged his wife, Eliana, into his side tighter. “So our brotherhood would be blessed by the duet of Eliana and Liliana.”
Eliana looked adoringly up at her husband before she winked at Lili. “I somehow don’t think fate conspired such a perfect match just so your brotherhood would have wives with rhyming names. Besides, I’m Ellie and she’s Lili.”
“No.”
“No.”
Both Antonio and Rafael spoke in unison, each vehemently refusing his mate’s nickname.
Eliana sighed, giving Lili a we’re-in-this-together look. “You’re Liliana and never Lili to Antonio, right?”
Lili wiggled one eyebrow at Antonio. “Yeah, and he has exclusive rights to it. So y’all better call me Lili if you want to remain on your doctor’s good side.”
“It’s clear to me why Antonio is falling over himself to marry you.” That was Richard Graves. Not Antonio’s brother, but his partner, the one who smothered them all in security measures, who used to be Rafael’s handler. The Brit was the perfect combination of suave and grit, a Bond/Lancelot hybrid. His hand laced with Isabella’s, his wife and a surgeon herself, his body touching hers from shoulder to calf, as if he couldn’t be away from her. It was weird, since the guy looked as cold as a cobra. “You’re a combination I didn’t think existed, but exactly what would bowl him over. You must have mowed him down without even trying.”
“That she did.” Antonio laughed, looking down at her adoringly. “I’m down for the count. For life.”
“That’s what you guys do. Even those who resist their fate for years.” Isabella pinched Richard, who growled and buried a kiss in her neck. She giggled, looking at Lili. “When they give in and give you their hearts, it’s yours forever. They’d conquer the world for you, live and die for you. They’re a bit scary, but each of them is one-of-a-kind and we can’t think how we lived before them.”
Richard squeezed his wife tighter as the other women fervently corroborated her statements and their husbands hugged them closer, too.
Lili looked up at Antonio, as usual finding his heart in his eyes, the heart he said he’d grown to love her with.
Pulling him down, she murmured against his lips, “I have no idea at all how.”
She surfaced from his drowning kiss to the hoots and claps of the couples, and the disgusted groans of Jakob Wolff, the guy who looked like a Viking marauder, and the only single brother around.
Antonio had just told them about his proposal last night. The ladies had insisted on meeting her at once, and the men had made their wishes come true without delay. They’d all converged on LA from wherever they’d been in the world, arriving at Antonio’s mansion one after the other. By the time they’d started arriving, Antonio had told her everything about their previous and current personas, and she’d memorized all the info.
The only one who was missing was Ivan Konstantinov, Antonio’s best friend. But he certainly wouldn’t have left the side of the woman Antonio had saved that first night she and Antonio were together. Antonio had told her they were missing another brother, but that she wouldn’t be seeing him. He’d left their brotherhood
