“You’d still be in hospital,” she says.
I bite her lip again. “Foolish of you to think a hospital stay would deter me from marrying the love of my life.”
Her breath catches at the word love. I see her trying to shut herself down as a darker expression crosses her face, but then she shakes her head, as though pulling herself out of it.
“Stop talking nonsense and fuck me already.”
I do.
And I make sure her demons don’t reach her.
Love is far too small a word for what I really feel for her.
But she isn’t ready for that kind of madness yet.
She’d run… or try to. Because letting her go was never an option.
I force a plan into place. I consider speaking to her father, but then I discard the thought entirely.
I don’t need his approval, and neither does she.
She is the next Bellanti mafia queen, a ruler she was born to be. No one tells her what she can or cannot do.
I am almost shocked by my own restraint. I have had to talk myself out of kidnapping her and forcing her to marry me more times than I care to admit.
I even had someone on standby, ready to marry us while she was unconscious, so that when she woke, she would already be my wife.
I considered drugging her, blackmail, leverage, every ugly, effective option.
But look at me now, entertaining the notion of fucking morals.
I want her to marry me because she chooses it, because she sees that we are meant to be.
She keeps fighting it.
That’s fine. She always fights what terrifies her most.
I will make her see it… understand that she is my fucking soulmate.
But my patience is fraying.
Chapter 54
Milo
I leave my sleeping beauty where she is, nestled beneath the covers that smell like us. It’s the best fucking smell now, right at the top of my list, the very first one still being her scent.
I close her bedroom door quietly, careful not to wake her.
I don’t run into anyone inside.
Outside, the guards stiffen the moment they spot me. Their hands go straight to their guns, their eyes filled with suspicion as they take me in.
One of them steps forward. “Who let you in?”
I grin. “It’s fine. Your boss knows I’m here.”
The boss definitely knows I’m here, seeing as I fucked her all night long.
