A warm arm slid around her waist, a warm, newly bearded face nuzzling into the side of her naked belly. “You should be asleep.”
“I know.” She gripped his arm and lay back down, locking herself into the comfort of his embrace. “Nic…”
“Yes,carina?”
“I want to come with you.”
The arms embracing her tensed. “Absolutely not.”
She lifted her head and rested her chin on his chest. The fine hairs tickled against her skin. “I’ll go out of my mind if I stay here alone,” she said quietly.
“And I’ll go out of my mind if you come. You’ll be putting yourself in unnecessary danger.”
“If the plan fails…”
“If the plan fails, I will be dead,” he said with a bluntness that made her clutch him tighter and her eyes fill with tears. “They will have no need to come for you anymore. You will be safe.”
Sniffing back the tears, she pressed her cheek on his chest and whispered, “You can’t know what they’ll do. They know we’re together. I can’t wait alone in this room not knowing what’s happening or if you’re hurt or even if you’re alive. Don’t make me wait here with only my fear for company. However this plays out, it’s you and me against them.”
Fingers twisted through her hair. His chest lifted and fell in a sigh. “I need to keep a cool head, and I can’t do that if you’re there, Georgia. It’s impossible.”
“Imagine if it was the other way round and you were the one being left behind,” she pleaded. “Please, just let me come with you – they won’t be expecting that, so, really, I’ll be even safer. Nothing else needs to change. You can still confront them alone, and I’ll wait in the car or wherever you think best, just don’t leave me behind.”
His mouth pressed tightly into her hair, his hot breath seeping through her skull and into her bloodstream.
He already lived in her blood. Niccolo had been nestled in her heart from the day she’d met him and pumped through her veins with every beat.
“Okay,” he eventually agreed. “You can come. But you will wear the wig and wait in the car. Whatever happens, you stay in the car.”
A tear escaped and trailed a thin river onto his chest. “Thank you.”
He squeezed her even tighter and whispered, “Just stay in the damned car.”
It was almost time.
Niccolo’s heart was thumping painfully against his ribs. All the things that could go wrong were playing on a loop in his head.
The whiteness of Georgia’s complexion and the tightness of her features spoke louder than any words that she shared his fears.
The cat-and-mouse game they’d been playing since leaving Benjamin’s house was over. In ten minutes, they would get in the car and he would drive them to the cemetery where Lorenzo Esposito was being laid to rest.
It was for Georgia that all Niccolo’s fears were tied… and he knew all her fears were tied to him.
He couldn’t blame her for wanting to come with him, because she was right – if their roles were reversed, being left behind while she walked into such danger would kill him.
“When this is over, will you marry me?” The words came out before he’d even thought of them.
She blinked sharply and turned her blue eyes to him. “What?” she whispered.
He held her gaze and expelled a long breath. “Marriage. You and me.”
The fear already writ large on her face magnified. She seemed to shrink into herself. “Don’t do this, Nic. Please. Not now.”
But it had to be now. He saw that. If not now, it might be never. He couldn’t go to his grave without Georgia knowing the truth of what lay in his heart.
Swooping onto his knees before her, he took her hands in his. Despite the high spring warmth filtering into their small hotel room, her hands were cold. “I love you.”
Beautiful face contorting, she shook her head. “Don’t.”
