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She giggles, and my eyes are glued to hers as they grow glassy. Tears free-fall down her cheeks, and she’s somehow even more beautiful like this.
I clear my throat and look up at my woman, who is staring down at me, her eyes not even glancing at the rock I’m holding yet.
“I meant it when I said it.Sei la cosa più belle che mi sia mai capitata. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, angel. And sometimes I feel like I’m the worst thing to ever happen to you.”
She rolls her eyes, but I keep going.
“But for some reason, you keep me around. And I know it hasn’t been long, and you’ve got a lot of time to kick me to the curb. But fuck, angel. All I wanna do is spend the rest of my life loving you. Holding you. Talking to you. Kissing that perfect, smart-ass mouth of yours. I am happy just being with you. No matter where we are or what I’m doing. At the end of the day, it’s you. You are it for me.Sei la mia anima gemella. You are my soulmate.”
She gets down on her knees, tears streaking down her face as she starts to nod. She takes my face in her hands and runs her palms over my cheeks.
“Marry me. I swear to you, I will spend this lifetime and the next doing anything I can to show you that you’ve made the right decision. Every day. All day. I am so unworthy of you, and this is probably selfish of me to ask. Keeping you in this life, putting you in danger…because you know the danger only goes up from here…”
“Stop talking, Dante.” She laughs and shakes her head.
I oblige, and she kisses me, putting every ounce of her soul into it and rocking my fucking world like only she can. Her lips are warmth to my ice, heaven to my hell, perfection to my sins.
“I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with you,” she says through tears. “I’m so in love with you, Dante.”
I pull her into my chest as we both stay put on the floor. “I love you more than I thought was even fucking possible, angel.”
I bend and kiss the fresh scar on her shoulder the same way I’ve kissed her other scars these past few months. Finding out everything her brother did to her made me wish I could bring the fucker back to life and torture him just to kill him again.
I pull her into my chest and inhale her, taking in as much of her as she’ll allow before I work myself up thinking about what she went through with him.
“Do you remember how you’d always tell me you aren’t your own? How you’ve never felt like you are your own?” I ask her, and she nods. “It’s always been my end goal to get you to believe you are your own. Because it kills me when you say that.” I bend, kissing her scar again. “But now, I’ve realized if I can’t get you to accept that you belong to yourself, I’m going to just tell you that you’re fucking mine.”
She kisses me, and I breathe her in again, calming myself. I don’t want to forget one fucking detail of this moment. She smells like shampoo and cherries and her favorite body lotion—it’s a woodsy scent mixed with something sweet that’s incredibly her. It’s intoxicating and calming all at once.
I pull away, forcing myself to let go of her long enough to slide the ring onto her finger and watch as she marvels at it.
“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my entire life. Dante…” She kisses me, her tongue sliding between my lips.
This ring is nothing in comparison to her, but I’ll let her think it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen if it makes her happy.
“I just have one request.” She looks at me with a sly smile spreading across her face.
“Anything, angel.”
“Let’s elope.”
Six Weeks Later
Gianaand I stand in her childhood bedroom as she gathers some of the things she didn’t get to bring with her when everything went down.
Our war with the Amatos is far from over, especially because nothing was settled. They haven’t paid for their ruthless sins against my family—still haven’t even admitted to them. When we came together to fight for Giana, we called a half-ass truce that has carried us this far, but we’ve got a long way to go, and they have a lot of repenting to do.
“You’ll have to hurry,” Niccolò rushes out. “I don’t want to chance anyone seeing you and ruin any progress we’ve made. Cameras are down on this wing, but he checks them often. I need to get them back on before he notices.”
His gaze darts between Giana and me before he leaves us to it and goes to stand guard, as promised.
Gabriel and Elena Amato are throwing one of their usual extravagant parties in the west-wing ballroom. We’ve been waiting for a couple of weeks to get in here without being seen, and this has been our first chance. Giana has kept in contact with her brother, and he’s created a diversion to not only get us safely inside from the garage but also to Giana’s old room without any eyes on us.
I just want to get in and out before something changes.
I don’t enjoy being in this home. And from what Giana has told me, I don’t think she wants to be here any more than I do, but these possessions of hers are important.
A diploma, other jewelry from her grandmother, photos of Remi and her when they were younger. Things she can’t replace. So it’s worth it to me.
