I take a sip and close my eyes, letting the memory wrap around me like velvet. “That night changed me. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.”
Enzo shifts closer. “You were mine from the second I touched you. I chased that feeling for so long. Now that you’re here, now that you’re mine, sometimes I worry it’s a dream that I’ll wake up from.”
I set the flute down and turn fully toward him, eyes searching his. “You mean that?”
“I do.” He reaches into his jacket pocket, and my heart stops.
It’s not a designer box that he pulls out. It’s a small velvet one, the kind you’d see in an old family heirloom collection. He opens it and inside is a ring unlike any I’ve ever seen. Vintage. Elegant. A thin band of white gold with a dramatic center stone and two small diamonds on either side.
“This was my grandmother’s,” he says softly. “She survived a war. Built a family from ashes. And when I told my mother I wanted to ask you something, she didn’t hesitate to make sure this was the ring I would ask you with.”
I’m already crying. It’s ridiculous. But something about this—about him—undoes me in the softest, most beautiful way.
Enzo shifts onto one knee, offering all that he is in the quiet of our room with a devastating look of love in his eyes.
“I married you once out of necessity,” he says. “But this…this is me asking you to choose it. To choose me. Not as a Marchetti. Not as a strategy. But as a man, your husband, your partner. The man who loves you more than anything he’s ever owned or conquered.”
My hands cover my mouth, my heart doing something wild and irreparable in my chest. “Enzo…”
“I love you, Zara.” His voice cracks, just a little as his eyes stay steady on mine. “God, I love you. Every sharp edge. Every wild piece. You’re not just the woman I want in my bed or at my side. You’re the woman I want to build a future with. To have a family with. To grow old with—if we survive my mother.”
I laugh, a watery, choking laugh, and launch myself into his arms, toppling him back onto the rug.
“Yes,” I say into his chest. “Yes, you ridiculous, beautiful man. Of course it’s yes.”
His arms lock around me as he rolls us so I’m beneath him, and I see something in his eyes I’ve never seen so clearly—relief. Not the kind born of safety or survival. The kind born from being seen. From being chosen.
“I love you too,” I whisper. “And not because you’re powerful or dangerous or impossibly hot—though, let’s be honest, that helps. I love you because you see me. Because you never asked me to be anything but exactly who I am. And because when I’m with you, I feel safe and cared for and powerful.”
He takes the ring from the box, setting it beside us. As he leans over me, he picks up my hand and slides it on. When it’s in place he stares at it for a moment, then brings my hand to his lips.
He let go of my hand and looks into my eyes, trailing a single finger down my neck. I’m barely holding back a river of tears as his mouth crashes onto mine, soft but reverent. A promise. A brand.
When he finally pulls away, his breath sweeps against my lips, “Happy birthday, my Queen.”
I smile through the tears. “Best gift I’ve ever gotten, my King.”
He kisses me like I’m something precious. Like he’s asking permission again to be mine.
My back settles into the thick rug, my fingers tangled in hisshirt, the warmth of the fire flickering over us both. The kiss deepens, his hands begin to travel across my body.
“Are you sure you want to do this here?” I tease softly.
Enzo lifts his head and smiles, that devastating smile that makes me weak. “I want you here. I want you everywhere. But tonight…” His eyes sweep over me, possessive and tender in equal measure. “Tonight, I want to worship you. Slowly.”
My breath stutters as he moves over me, pressing a kiss just beneath my ear, then another at the hollow of my throat. His fingers find the hem of my shirt and lift it with aching care, baring inch after inch of skin as if he’s unwrapping something sacred.
He pulls it over my head, then leans back just enough to look at me.
“Perfect,” he whispers. “Always so fucking perfect.”
I reach for his shirt and tug at the buttons, impatient to see him. “Take this off. Now.”
He obliges, shrugging out of the soft black fabric. The firelight dances over the lines of his chest, the tattoos that tell a history most men never survive. He’s cut and powerful and mine.
“I still can’t believe you’re real,” I say.
“I’ve never felt more real than when I’m with you.”
