Dominic came rushing in then, squealing with delight, and ran straight to his father. Giving Hannah the piercing joy of watching her child and her husband bask in each other, as if love had always been a feast. As if it was supposed to be, not the crumbs she’d hoarded away in her family’s house.
She found that she had never been so hungry in all her life. Hannah went to the counter and fixed herself a plate. Then found tears rolling down her cheeks as she tasted, one bite and then the next, purelove.
Salty. Sweet. Perfectly fluffy, gloriously dense. It was everything. It was the dance of flavor on her tongue, it was spice when needed, and the lightest, airiest pastry imaginable. It was meringues with perfect peaks and fluffy eggs baked into fragrant quiches. Perfect hot chocolate and decadently strong coffee.
Antonluca shooed them out of the kitchen and brought trays into the room that Hannah supposed was now their living room, where Antonluca and Hannah got to be parents watching an overexcited toddler amuse himself beneath the Christmas tree for the first time while they feasted and laughed.
And when Dominic had to take what would likely be his first sugar crash nap of the day, they found each other there on the floor. Surrounded by wrapping paper, a crackling fire, and watchful Christmas tree, they knelt together, gripped each other’s hands, and basked in each other, too.
“Hannah,” he said, holding her hands between his. “My beautiful, impossible Hannah, I wanted to show you the only way I could. I don’t know what love is, but I know how it tastes.”
“So do I,” she said, and kissed him.
He kissed her back, but then he sent her apart from him again. He smoothed his hands over her cheeks, letting his fingers find their way into her hair.
“I know how love tastes,” he said again. “A hint of sugar and the complication of the perfect spice. You, Hannah. And you have brought me more love than I could possibly deserve. You have given me you and our beautiful son. Somehow, last night, you even brought me back to my food, too.”
“It’s okay to love things,” she whispered. “It’s all right to let the act of loving them transform you. It’s not a weakness.”
“I didn’t know love,” he told her urgently, pressing kisses to her brow, her cheeks, her nose. “But I discoveredfoodand I poured myself into it, and I saved almost everyone I know. And for those I could not save, like my mother, it was like a tonic while they were there. And so for me, love became the fighting. And once it was not necessary for me to fight, I could not love, either.”
“And yet,” Hannah said quietly, like a vow, “look at how you love me. And our son.”
“Entirely because of you,” he said, and his voice was rough again, but his eyes gleamed like silver. “Because you told the truth to that tabloid just as, last night, you told me the truth straight to my face. I don’t need to be a circus act. I don’t need to keep myself in prison for crimes I did not commit. I cannot blame my mother for what few choices she had before her, but it’s not my fault I couldn’t save her from it. Sometimes, if I’m really honest, I think she didn’t want to be saved.”
“Sometimes,” Hannah agreed, “we all have to save ourselves.”
“You say that,” Antonluca said quietly, tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear, “but I am quite certain, Hannah Hansen of Nebraska, that you are the only one in all the world who could have saved me. And you did, without my even knowing it.”
“I promise you this,” she said, smiling at him. “I always will.”
“And what I promise you in return,diavolessa,” he said, “my little devil of a bride, is that I will never turn my back on this life. I will always choose you and our family first. And I will learn how to love you all in a way that does not come with strings, but feels the way this morning tastes. Right. Endless. Ours.”
“Merry Christmas, my beautiful husband,” Hannah whispered, no longer caring that the tears were pouring freely down her face, not when she was smiling so wide and so hard that her cheeks hurt. “I have to tell you, this is the best one yet.”
He pulled her into his arms and settled her on his lap, so he could kiss her a little more thoroughly. But not too wildly, not yet. Not now. Not while Dominic slept there beside them, and he supposed that he would learn to love this, too.
The sweet anticipation, because he knew that they would end every night together. That even if they were separated for a day or two here and there, they would always have this.
Home.
Wherever they were together, that’s where he would be.
And they would play with these flames for the rest of their days.
“Just you wait,” he promised her, kissing her like it was the first time, because with Hannah, it always was. “I haven’t even started.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Antonluca had spenthis life defying all odds, building empires and making the world his, and still, allowing himself to be open and vulnerable and completely in love with Hannah and the family they made was by far the hardest.
It was also the easiest.
He summoned all of his siblings to the castle for the Epiphany, six days into the New Year.
They all came grumbling and complaining, no doubt thinking that this would be some sort of business lecture.
But instead, Antonluca threw them a proper Christmas. He did all the cooking. He refused to discuss business. And most of all, he showed them that they, too, could risk opening their hearts.
