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I laugh. “Now why did you have to go and intimidate that poor guy?”

“You exaggerate,” he says. “I’m not that intimidating.”

“When I first met you—beside the VIP room at the Dollhouse—I couldn’t stop shaking. You aresothat intimidating. Yet hot at the same time.”

A nostalgic grin almost touches his face. “I remember that. You were shaking like a Chihuahua. I thought you were cold, but it was September in Vegas and nearly ninety out at four a.m.”

“You had Henchman-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named turn on the heat for me.”

“My attempt to make you comfortable.”

“Kind of hard when I didn’t know if you were about to blast me.”

“You really thought I would?” he asks, swallowing from his pint.

“After what I accidentally saw? Hell, yes!”

“Not for one second was that on the table. I was never going to. I guess you can say something about you caught my interest.”

I roll my eyes, wiping wing sauce on my napkin. “You mean my performance on stage? I wonder why.”

“No,” he says sternly, correcting me. “Of course you were a very beautiful woman whom I couldn’t take my eyes off on that stage, but there was always something else about you that held my attention. A spark I don’t even think you know you have.”

“You said I didn’t belong there.”

“You never did. Another reason I refused to let you go. I knew you’d return there.”

I sit up slightly, surprised by his revelation. “You’ve never told me that before.”

“There are many things I’ve never told you. If I were better with my words and how to express certain… sentiments… I would.”

“Like what?”

“Falynn…”

“Gio,” I say softly. “Like what?”

The nerves inside my stomach make a fluttery return waiting on his answer. Gio has presented himself as a stone-cold and borderline emotionless man since I met him years ago, even once he opened up and expressed his love and affection for me.

But there’s so much more to him even I’m unaware of. He’s spent almost his entire lifetime suppressing certain aspects of himself, right down to grieving his mother as a boy.

He inhales a slow, deep breath and pushes his basket and pint away. His expression morphs into something darker, lined with regret.

“I told you earlier I failed you. I wasn’t only talking about what happened the day I held you captive in the villa. I was talking about before. The first time we lost our baby,” he says heavily. “My pregnant wife gunned down on the street like a common criminal. I had intel that morning Lovato was increasing his efforts for revenge. I never should’ve let you go to that appointment. My instinct told me not to…yet I let it happen.”

“Gio, you couldn’t have predicted it. Nobody could! Lovato took it to a new level with what he did.”

“When you’re in my position, you should always be able to anticipate your enemy’s next move. It was an amateur mistake a more seasoned Don wouldn’t make. I underestimated Lovato, and he counted on that. My father never would’ve been so foolish. But I was. I allowed it to happen. It was on me and I failed.”

“You’ve been blaming yourself all these years?” I feel disturbed by the thought. My husband has been harboring this secret guilt so many years over a loss that crushed us both. He’s never once mentioned this to me, though the gradual change in him began not long after. I was so blinded by my own grief, I never made the connection.

“I became obsessed with crushing every possible enemy I could. As my empire grew, I hunted down all of them. Any possible enemy who could pose a threat. I decided we could recreate what we had—the pregnancy and the little one we lost. I went too far, forcing you with the treatments. I just wanted to fix it.” He lets go of the deep breath he’s inhaled and for once his broad shoulders seem to slump, even if by half an inch. “It turned into this vision I had of us, and that was what I cared about. Not the real woman in front of me I was neglecting.”

A couple of tears leak from my eyes and slip down the curve of my cheeks. “I wish you’d told me this. I thought you were checking out of our marriage.”

“In a way, I was. I was compartmentalizing it all. Old habits die hard, as they say.”

“What happened to us is always going to be the most devastating moment of my life. But neither of us could help it, Gio. Please stop blaming yourself. I never have…not for a second.”

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