“You didn’t do it.” I try to cup her cheek with my damaged hands. “Your father put you in an impossible position. He’s been manipulating and abusing you your entire life. But when it came down to it, you saved me. Dashamir would have killed me eventually, and you risked your life and faced him. So how could I be angry with you?”
Tears spill over her lashes. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
“That’s not your call to make.” I brush my thumb across her cheekbone, ignoring the pain in my hand. “I forgive you, Adora. Completely.”
She makes a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. “Why? Why aren’t you furious with me?”
“Because I meant what I said in the car.” I hold her gaze, pouring everything I feel into the words. “I’m falling for you.”
My feelings for her crash through my aching body. I’m falling for this woman who’s brave in ways she doesn’t even recognize. She walked into enemy territory alone to save me when she could have run. She could have let me die and freed herself from this arrangement.
But she chose me over her father’s orders and over her own safety.
And fuck, the way she looks at me. She sees who I am beneath the violence and the grief I carry. She sees parts of me I thought died with my family.
She makes me feel like a man again.
“Vincenzo…” Her voice breaks.
“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. You see worth in me that I don’t always see in myself.” I stroke her face with both hands despite the screaming protest from my damaged fingers. “You make me want things I thought I’d lost forever. A life beyond revenge.”
“I’m not brave,” she protests. “I’m terrified all the time.”
“That’s what makes it brave. You’re scared and you do it anyway.” I brush away her tears. “I thought you’d be like your father, cold, cruel, and calculating. Instead, you’re kind and soft, and you still have hope, even after everything he’s done to you.”
She’s crying harder now, but there’s something breaking open in her expression. Something like hope.
“Every time I think I know you, you surprise me,” I continue. “You make me want to be better than I am. You make me want to be worthy of you.”
“You are worthy,” she whispers. “I’m the one who has to work to be worthy of you.”
“No, it’s me who has to do that, and I will.” I hold her gaze, letting her see everything. The want, the need, the desperate hope. “I’ll spend my whole life working to be worthy of you, Adora Montoni.”
She holds my shoulders, caressing me with her thumbs. “You already are. You protected me when you could have hated me. You held me while I cried. You see me.” The words tumble out in a rush. “I should have told you about the poison in the car when you said you were falling for me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. Because I’m falling for you too.” Her hands frame my face, careful of the bruises. “You make me believe I deserve good things.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “You make me believe I deserve love.”
“You do, doe. Christ, you do.”
I’m barely breathing. Every word she speaks lands like absolution I don’t deserve, but I take it anyway.
“Kiss me,” I demand, my voice rough with need.
She hesitates. “You’re hurt.”
“I don’t care. Kiss me. You’ll have to come here because my ribs feel like they’re on fucking fire.”
A laugh breaks through her tears, bright and unexpected and beautiful. She climbs carefully into bed beside me, fitting herself against my less injured side.
And then her mouth is on mine.
Her kiss is desperate, tender, and I taste the salt from her tears. There’s something sweeter underneath. Hope, maybe. Or just Adora, soft, warm, and finally mine.
I slide my damaged fingers into her hair, ignoring the pain because her lips, her warmth, the way she melts against me, is worth any amount of suffering.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur against her lips between kisses. “I’ve got you, doe.”
