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“Oh shit,” Elio said. His dad and uncles were buddies with Rocco, all of them part of a weekly poker game. The gruff, chain-smoking man had been a fixture in Elio’s life since he was a kid. It was Rocco who’d taught him some of his more colorful curse words. “Rocco okay?”
Liza nodded. “Yeah. Aldo just texted. Said the fire was out, and no one was injured, but it was a total loss. Wanted me to tell you he was sorry he didn’t get to see the game.”
“Is he going to be able to swing by Divine?” Elio asked. The whole gang had made plans to go out for a late dinner after the game together, dining at the restaurant Rafe had inherited from his grandfather.
Liza shook her head. “No. Apparently something else came up that he and Kayden have to deal with, something to do with a woman who’d been staying at the motel.”
“Damn.” Elio was sorry he wouldn’t get to see his brother before he returned to Baltimore, but then he remembered that it wasn’t like he would be gone for long. Soon, he and Aldo would have plenty of opportunities to go out for dinner. Hell, they could even go to the hockey games together, both of them as spectators.
“Okay, let’s load up the cars,” Luca said as they crossed the parking lot. Everyone climbed into two different vehicles, as he led Gianna to his truck.
Luca honked the horn of the car he was driving when he and Liza pulled out, followed by Rafe, Gio, and Keeley in Gio’s truck.
Gianna started to walk around to the passenger’s side of his vehicle, but he grasped her wrist, pulling her toward him. Pressing her back against his truck, he stole a kiss.
“You were incredible tonight,” she said, her hands wrapped around his shoulders.
Now that he had her back in his arms, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake he’d made at the beginning of the year. It was time Gianna Duncan learned exactly what she meant to him.
Because he was going to take a page from Gage Russo’s book, determined that before the year was out, she was not only going to be his fiancée but his wife.
“I love you.” He’d said the words last night…for the very first time in his life. He’d been thinking them the entire evening, but Gianna, the brave, open-hearted woman, had been the first to say them.
And he’d been so moved by it, his throat had closed, so it had taken him a moment to be able to offer them back.
She kissed his jaw. “I love you too.”
“I want you to think about something while I’m away these next couple of months.”
“Okay,” she said. “What?”
“Us.”
Gianna laughed. “I don’t think I’ll be thinking of anything but.”
“Gianna, I wasn’t kidding last night. When I look at my future, all I see is you. I know you think I’m moving too fast. But the truth is, for my entire adult life, I haven’t moved at all. Never taken one step. Never been tempted to. Then, I kissed you under that mistletoe, the fog lifted, and suddenly I was looking at the road to paradise. I’m impatient to get there. So take the next eight weeks and think about what I want. Because when I get home, I’m moving in and then, I’m proposing, and then, if I can convince you to say yes, I’m going to be waiting at the end of an aisle for you shortly after.”
Gianna sniffed, wiping her eyes, despite the fact her smile was wide and bright. “You say the most perfect things.” She stepped into his arms, and he held her tight. “And give incredible hugs.”
She lifted her head as he lowered his, their lips meeting for the softest, sweetest, most perfect kiss of his life.
She sighed as they parted. “I needed that,” she whispered, repeating the same words she’d said to him after their very first kiss. “I needed you.”
“And I needed you, Freckles.”
* * *
