Reiko gave a short shake of her head and began scrolling. “You’re impossible.”
“Impossibly in love.”
“I’m not sure that’s cute.”
“Need me to crawl under this table while you shop and convince you of my devotion?”
She choked on a laugh and jabbed him lightly with her elbow. “I swear, if you don’t give me at least half a day to rest, I’ll write something really demeaning in kanji, instead of my name.”
Santino dropped his head back and bellowed a laugh at her threat. She could absolutely get away with it if she wanted. The characters would be on his skin long before he’d know better. But the fact thatthatwas what she’d threatened was damn hilarious. He folded his arms properly around her and bent so his face was half-buried in her neck. “You really are a treasure, beautiful. I don’t deserve you.”
She shuffled against him—unhelpfully—and laid an arm overtop of his while she scrolled slowly through the digital catalogue. “Let’s not fight about who deserves whom. As long as we’re happy, I think it’s okay in the end, isn’t it?”
He licked the back curve of her jawbone, because fucking hell, all of her bone structure was sexy. All of her was sexy. When had he developed a bone-structure kink? Was that even a realthing? He pushed the thought away. “Yeah, baby,” he said as she shuddered in his arms. “That’s the most important thing.” He pressed a kiss to the skin below her ear. “No,you, you are my most important thing.”
Her fingers spread out to curl around his forearm, nails biting faintly into his flesh. “Maybe, instead of looking for flowers for the house, we should be talking about wedding plans.”
He sucked in a breath of her, then adjusted to prop his chin on her shoulder. “Yeah?”
“I want to be able to see my feet at my wedding,” she said. “But I have no idea how long it really takes to plan and organize all of that. We might already be past that option.”
It was not his fault his dick twitched at the less-than-subtle suggestion of her already being pregnant with their first child. The fact he kept his hands in place at the thought was perhaps one of his top lifetime accomplishments.
Aloud, he said, “If we were normal, working-class people, you’d probably be right.” He turned his head enough to breathe his reminder into her ear. “Tell me what style bride you want to be, and I’ll have a personal boutique set up for you in the house by next weekend. If you can’t find exactly what you want, we’ll order custom.”
“That’s—”
He licked at her lips to silence her when she half-twisted toward him. Then he eased back, met her gaze, and teased, “The billionaire way, beautiful. We do everything over the top. I’m going to spoil you whether you ask or not.”
Reiko sighed against him, but her exaggerated movement did not disguise the laugh that shook her frame. “Fine. But you can’t be there for the private session part.”
Santino pouted dramatically. “Spoilsport.”
She pinched his arm. “We should look into cake sampling or something, too. And venues. And whatever else. We can do those things together.”
He kissed her hair. “Can’t wait to marry me?”
She drew an audible breath, lifted her head from his shoulder, and smiled far too warmly at him. “It’s not the wedding,” she said. “Not specifically. I do want to marry you, Santino. But the thing I’m most eager for is everything after … forus.” Tears sparkled in front of her brown eyes. “I’ve never looked forward to anything more than the promise of us.”
His chest burned in a way he was scarcely familiar with, because he understood. He tipped forward, brushed his lips over hers for a moment, then let an almost painfully genuine smile split his face. “Neither have I, beautiful.”
Epilogue
Everything After
Reiko Guerra perched witha strange, forgotten kind of nervousness against her husband’s imported work desk while she waited for him to return to his office. She had it on very good authority that his meeting was wrapping up, and she knewshe’d feel better as soon as she could move forward. But moving forward, as it always did, required him.
She turned her gaze to the desktop in search of a distraction and smiled at the photos her big, bad mafia boss husband kept on display. Five separate, scrolling digital squares, each with uniquely styled frames to represent the relationships depicted within. Photos of the two of them rolled past, in no particular order, their smiles and the flashy jewelry he insisted on buying her blinding the camera. In others, pictures of their gorgeous babies.
Her eye caught one of their oldest’s more recent photos, his giant grin beaming up at the world while he held a nest of hair in his hand. The nest had been his insisted attempt at braiding his poor sister’s hair, of course, and detangling that had resulted in a nightmare Reiko hadn’t fully shaken off. But Seia’s look of goofy pride was adorable, regardless.
Granted, she was biased.
Emotion threatened to choke her and Reiko looked away as the sound of voices finally drifted closer. There would be plenty of tears later. Ironically, finding security and comfort had also apparently meant finding the freedom to show more emotion, because she no longer remembered the version of herself who’d gone numb to the world and its cruelties. Once upon a time, she would have thought that a frightening thing.
Her phone buzzed in her hand and she quickly glanced down, seeing a text from Irene.
He’s all yours.
