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“One day, Antonio, I hope you will find love like I have.” I leave him with a smile.
At midnight, we all stop and stare up at the sky, watching a thrilling show of fireworks Carlos had flown in from Mexico, followed by the release of hundreds of floating white paper lanterns — Madam Funai’s wedding gift to us, flown in from Japan, their soft glow rising and disappearing into the inky black sky.
Cannon makes a champagne toast. “To my beautiful bride. May everyone have a heart as pure as hers.” He raises his glass and everyone cheers. The bright taste of the bubbles reminds me of that night I fell asleep on his sofa and woke up to find myself kidnapped on his private jet, the jet that now belongs to the Meralo family.
All the memories we’ve already made surround me, making me the person I’ve become today. And I know there will be many more happy memories as we grow together in love. Nonna’s words come to me and now, I know them to be true.
Everything you need, love, happiness, work, it’s all right here. You’ve been blessed, my child.
And I have been blessed, blessed by fire.
EPILOGUE
Charlie
It was one night.And if I’m being honest—apologies to my dead husband, God rest his soul—it was the best sex of my life.
I mean, they call the manthe Beast.Would you expect anything less?
Six-foot five ex-military giant with a face meant for Hollywood and a thick head of hair you want to run your fingers through… I have had the privilege.
He wanted things to continue, but I couldn’t risk it, I couldn’t bear the pain of another relationship gone wrong. I’ve already lost two men I’ve loved. Why risk losing a third?
I’ve decided I’m cursed. After losing a fiancée and a husband, I know that any man who tries to marry me will surely perish. I couldn’t do that to him. He’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen, stronger than anyone I know, and tough as iron. But he has a sweet side too, buried beneath all that muscle.
I just don’t want to get to know it. Don’t want to get attached. Don’t want my heart, that’s already hanging by a thread, to be in any more pain.
There’s just one problem…
I have a secret. A huge, massive secret that’s even bigger than him. And if he finds out what it is…
This Beauty is going to have to answer to one seriously ticked-off Beast.
Ready for the next book? Read Charlie’s story here:
BONUS SCENE
THE SCHOOLROOM AT FIRE
Kylie and Cannon just couldn’t keep their hands off one another. I had to write one more naughty little scene for my newsletter subscribers.
You can grab it here:
FREE MAFIA FIRE Bonus Scene
FREE CHAPTER ONE VOW TO THE KING
Vow to the King is another book in the same series as Mafia Fire.
Emilia
Tonight isthatnight in my house. The one terrible night of the year that the men in my family lock themselves in my father’s study and drink too much whiskey, thereby avoiding their emotions. Not that the other nights around here are great or anything. This one is just particularly disturbing.
It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death.
They won’t talk about their feelings or admit they miss her. Instead, they pour one another deep, cut-crystal tumblers of the amber liquor. I, on the other hand, do my best to avoid them. I choose to cry my eyes out alone, hiding in the library, my face buried in one of the last few things I own of my mother’s. Her books. They’re the only things of hers my father didn’t remove from this house in his attempt to scrub the place of her memory when she died.
These aren’tquiteall of her books. One rainy afternoon I was exploring our dusty old attic and I found a bunch of paperbacks hidden in a corner behind an old chair, stacked neatly in brown paper grocery bags. Pages and pages of dark romance, the women falling for men with harsh hands and handsome faces. Those books found a new hiding place.
