"You're very brave."
She laughs, then suddenly climbs higher on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. Her expression turns serious.
"Lorenzo?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
I look at her. This woman who walked into my restaurant desperate and afraid. Who chose me despite everything. Who sees all my darkness and calls it home.
"I love you too."
Sophia
I pull back from his arms, shaking my head. "No no no, you can't do that."
Lorenzo raises an eyebrow. "Do what?"
"Say 'I love you too' like that. Like it's simple. Like you're ordering coffee or checking off a box on some list.You haven't said it properly. Not once. And you're not allowed to just toss it out there all casual now."
A smirk tugs at his mouth against my finger.
"You want me to say it properly?"
"Yes."
He grabs my wrist, pulls my hand away from his mouth. His eyes darken, that warm brown turning almost black. "You want to know how I love you?"
My breath catches.
"I love you like drowning humans love air." His voice drops, rough velvet that scrapes against my skin. "Like I spent thirty-four years suffocating and didn't know it until you walked through my door. I love you like addiction, like obsession, like sickness and cure all at once."
He pulls me closer, his hands spanning my waist.
"I love you in ways that terrify me. In ways that make me want to lock you in a tower where no one can see you, touch you, breathe near you. I love you so much it rewired my DNA. Changed my molecular structure. You're in my blood now, Sophia. In my bones. In every thought, every breath, every heartbeat."
My eyes burn. My chest feels too small for my lungs.
"I love you like worship and blasphemy. Like prayer and sin. I love you more than my family, more than my empire, more than my own life. If God himself came down and told me to choose between you and heaven, I'd choose you and walk into hell smiling."
A tear escapes down my cheek. He catches it with his thumb.
"I love you violently. Desperately. With a hunger that will never be satisfied. Not in four years, not in forty, not in four hundred. You could live a thousand lifetimes and I would love you in every single one, find you in every single one, choose you in every single one."
His forehead presses against mine.
"That's how I love you, Sophia. Like madness. Like devotion. Like coming home."
I can't breathe. Can't think. Can only stare at this man who just split himself open and poured out his soul.
"Okay," I whisper.
"Okay?"
"That was... adequate."
He laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest. "Adequate?"
