Another role model.
“Thank you for having me!” she says, bouncing back to her seat beside Max, leaning into his ear to say something.
I lift my gaze, seeking reassurance. Across the room, I find my husband, the Don of the District, Clay Butcher staring at me—as if he can’t bear not to.
As the night deepens,the twins and their cousins of the same age are taken across the road to the hotel.
Speeches blur together—Bronson makes everyone laugh with his opening line, “Do I know you people?” Clay's words brand themselves onto my soul. Luca's toast makes the room sigh with melancholy. And Jasmine's stories leave us all wondering how much she’s had to drink.
Then it’s time… The moment I’ve been most nervous about—the MC's voice cuts through everything, saying, “It's time for the first dance."
My eyes widen.
Butterflies burst inside me.
WhenLove Me Tenderby Elvis Presley floods the ballroom, four hundred eyes land on me, provoking my pulse to race within my neck.
Clay appears beside me, his suit stretched across shouldersthat carry the weight of an empire, yet his eyes soften on me with love and understanding.
Smoothly, he holds his tattooed hand out for me to take—the same hand that has executed men, wiped my tears away, made me scream and whimper his name, and cradled our newborn sons.
I blink at it.
I take it, my breath steadying as our skin connects, affection and warmth rolling up my arm. I rise on trembling legs, balance on tiny heels, drowning in those ice-blue eyes that have watched men beg for mercy and me scream in ecstasy.
"Don't let me trip," I whisper.
"Never." That single word sounds like a vow.
He leads me down the steps to the centre of the ballroom, a square space made of light, polished wood, the planks laid in a crisscross pattern.
The overhead lights slowly dim, leaving only the chandeliers glowing in warm hues that dot the dance floor. We move through them to the heart of the square.
Clay Butcher claims me on the dance floor, pulling me against the towering hard wall of his body, close enough to feel his gun holstered at his ribs. If my moral compass did not point to Clay Butcher, to safety, that fact might frighten me.
It doesn’t.
Our true first dance happened in the log-cabin-on-steroids, my thighs straddling him, my heart on the line, my self-worth a pitiful thing. He told me dancing was problematic at six-foot-five, but perhaps he meant I was too short…
Today my stilettos bring me closer to his jaw. I can see his lips move as he declares, “You’re taller, sweet girl. Follow my lead. I’ve got you.”
Admiring the confidence in his movements, the control and guidance he offers, I fall into an easy flowwith him. I’m so used to following his lead in everyday life, this feels natural. We are surrounded by a dense circle of spectators.
He spins me into a slow, smooth twirl, my dress expanding with the motion, before he pulls me back into his chest. “I love you, sweet girl," he declares, his gravelly voice confident despite the hundreds watching.
"The most dangerous man in the world loves me. How crazy is that?" I whisper back.
"I know it is an—" He pauses, searching for a specific phrase. "An unspectacular and ordinary word, but it’s the one that means what I feel."
My heart stops.
I almost stumble, but he predicts my shock, holding me tighter, supportive as his words sail through my heart. Those words— they are the exact ones I clumsily blurted out the first time we danced, the first time I confessed my love. "You remember that?"
"Forget the first time you tell me you love me?" His eyes burn with a possessiveness. "Never."
Tears rush down my face. "I'm so happy it hurts.”
"So am I, little deer.”
