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Perhaps it was because he was only standing there, with a heart pounding heavily in his chest that he didn’t want to use.
But he had no choice.
After Maximus had come to see him, he had understood.
He had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was already too late to protect him. They had gotten under his skin, these two females who had moved into his home, his life.
Minerva, his tigress, and the tiger cub. Everything was upside down because of them.
Everything destroyed.
He had tried to make it right. He had gone back to work. He had tried to put another brick between himself and his past, but the problem was that the past had crashed through the wall and bled into his future.
It had made him turn Minerva away, and all he could think of was the incredible pain that had caused him. And then he thought he was going to have to build the wall again. In front of the time he spent with her. The nights making love. In front of those sun-drenched days on the private island.
In front of that night when he’d held Isabella in his arms and understood what it meant to be a father.
And he began to do that. Laying bricks. Over his heart, yet again. But he had realized that he didn’t want to stop thinking about them, even if it hurt.
And so he was here. Because he didn’t know where else to be.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you. I’m here to explain.”
“It had better be a good explanation,” she said, clenching and unclenching her hands into fists.
“I know,” he said. “Minerva, it isn’t that I don’t believe in love. I do. But the problem is that I know what it’s like to love someone who can’t love you back. I know what it’s like to be ill-used and abused and to not be able to let go. To want so badly for another person to care. She couldn’t care. No matter how much I wanted my mother to care, she couldn’t.
“And it broke me in ways that I can’t begin to describe. Except to tell you that I was hollowed out by the time your father met me. I wanted to be ready to shoot him if I needed to get money, to get food. Instead, I found myself accepting his charity. And I thought to myself, He’s offering charity, he might well have disgraceful intentions for me, and I thought that I could accept that too. I had lost my humanity somewhere in there. I... I lost my soul. Because I quit letting myself love.
“And even when I joined your family, it was the same. I told myself that I was different because I wasn’t blood. I held Isabella the other night, and I knew blood had nothing to do with anything. It isn’t because of him that I’ve been distant from your father. It’s because of me. Because I never wanted to accept the gift that he offered me. This place in the family. Because I didn’t want to need anyone or anything.
“I have been building walls ever since I escaped from Rome. Building walls between myself and the poverty that I had once. Because I thought they would keep me safe. Because I thought they would make it so I couldn’t go back. But all they do is keep people out. People that you want. People that you need. And I can’t live that way anymore. I can’t. Because you showed me a better way. You showed me a better life.
“Minerva, I used to think of you as a mouse, but that isn’t true at all. You’re a tigress. You are brave and brilliant and you have taught me bravery. I’m sorry that I couldn’t stand up and seize hold of it when I needed to. When you asked me to. But I want to do it now.
“Minerva, I am humbled by the gift that is you. You are the most brilliant woman who has ever been. Or ever will be. You are not second, you are first. It’s only that my heart was blind. Because that’s what it is when you take love away from yourself. You rob yourself of your senses. You make it so that you cannot truly see. But I see now. I see now because of you.”
“Me?”
“Yes,” he said. “You. You had to become a woman before I could have you, Min. And I... I should have waited until I became the man you deserved before I ever touched you.”
“Dante,” she said, flinging herself into his arms, wrapping them around his neck. And kissing him.
“That’s it?” His voice was rough. “You’re not even going to make me work for it?”
“We already worked for it. You already worked for it. And you know what? Even if you hadn’t come to your senses, you taught me something. You taught me to demand everything.”
“Good. Keep demanding it.”
“I will. I will. Dante, you are the most brilliant man I have ever known. And I am really glad that I had to force you to marry me.”
“I want to marry you again,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yes. Not for spectators, not for show. I want to marry you again because I want to.”
