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She quoted a line from one of my favorite poems, and I let out a surprised laugh.
“Larkin?” I asked incredulously.
“You used to carry that book around all the time in school. Nerd.”
“You’re an accountant.”
“Numbers are cooler than poetry.”
“No they aren’t,” I snorted and shook my head. “Just when I think I have you figured out, Orsini.”
“Well, I can’t have that, can I?” she replied with a smirk.
Adriana moved closer to me, her fingers still lightly entwined with mine. We stood there in silence for a moment, the quiet between us filled with an odd sort of comfort. It felt unreal, as if we were somehow removed from the chaos that swirled around us.
She tilted her head up to meet my gaze, her dark eyes steady and unflinching. “You’re not alone in this, Tristan,” she said softly. “You don’t have to bear all this weight by yourself.”
I look her up and down. “Will you take my last name? When we get married?”
She blinked at me, surprise flickering in her eyes for a moment before she composed herself. “Are you asking me that here? Now?” Adriana asked, her tone light as if to challenge the seriousness of my question.
I nodded, my face solemn. “Yes. We haven’t really done things conventionally, have we? So... will you?”
She looked at me for a long moment, her dark eyes studying mine with an intensity that made my heart pound in my chest. “I want a ring.”
“And a proposal,” I added, grinning at her insistence. She was right, after all.
She nodded, her lips curling into a smile that was halfway between amused and exasperated. “It’s not so much to ask for, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” I admitted, squeezing her hand lightly. “You’ll have both.”
“Good.” She stepped closer, sliding her arms around my neck and pulling me towards her until our bodies were flush against each other. “You have to convince me you actually like me first.”
The feel of her under my hands was warm and familiar, a sensation that I craved more than anything else. “Let me take you on a date, then. You want groveling? I’ll grovel.”
She considered that for a second, then smiled softly. “It’s a start,” she said. “And then what?”
“And then, Orsini,” I said. “We become the most powerful family in this city.”
Chapter Thirty-One: Adriana
There was a comfort in the silence that followed, the house hushed and empty, as if respecting the heaviness of our shared grief. Tristan and I moved through the rooms, clearing away remnants of the wake, indifferent to the ticking of the clock as it measured the fading hours of night. My dad told me to go home with him, but I didn’t want to. Liam and Kieran were going to go home, and it seemed awful to leave Tristan alone in that huge, gorgeous home, with the scent of food still in the air and the sound of nothingness seeping into his bones.
He might have kidnapped me, but he was still the father of my child. I was going to help him if I could.
After a while, Tristan turned to me, fatigue etching lines into his handsome face. “You should go home, too. It’s late.”
I shook my head, the gesture miniscule, almost as if the thought of leaving him alone was too daunting to fully express. “I want to stay,” I said. “At least until everything’s cleaned up.”
“Ade, you’re pregnant. I can clean up.”
“Maybe you should sleep.”
“Maybe you should sleep,“ he countered. “I need to keep my hands occupied. I keep thinking about…”
His voice trailed off, a shiver running through him in the wake of unspoken fears. I didn’t ask who or what he was thinking about. It could have been his father or his brothers, the family’s tainted legacy, or even us - this unexpected unit we were about to become.
“Then let’s keep your hands occupied together,” I said, reaching out and plucking a crystal glass from the coffee table. “You don’t have to talk to me. We can just clean together.”
