I laugh, glad he’s able to see my past fears as something to poke fun at instead of worry about. "Promise?"
In response, he kisses me, deep and all-consuming, walking me backward until my legs hit the edge of the bed.
We fall together onto the mattress, his weight a delicious pressure above me.
This is real. This is happening.
The man I loved and lost and found again is promising me forever.
Our son is sleeping peacefully down the hall.
Our second child grows inside me.
The future is bright and certain in a way I never dared to believe.
As Luca's hands slide beneath my shirt, I realize this is what happily ever after feels like.
Not a fairytale ending, but a beginning.
Our beginning. Finally.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
Valentina
As a Dante daughter, I've lived my entire life with boundaries that my brothers crossed without consequence.
Well, Luca was exiled, but in the end he became something bigger and more powerful than he would have had he stayed here.
Sure, Alessandro has looped me into the family business.
He’s listened to and respected my input, but in the end, my life isn’t my own.
Rules for me have always been different.
I’ve accepted that, found a way to live fully within the constraints.
But this new arrangement feels like a lifetime sentence for someone else's crime.
The only bright point is my bodyguard.
Cristian Bonetti.
His family has been with mine for generations.
He’s as loyal as they come, which is why Alessandro assigned him to protect me from Maksim and the Bratva, at least until marriage.
Unless Cristian joins us in the marriage bed, there’s little that can be done to protect me then.
I sense him before I see him, as I take refuge in the garden.
I pretend not to notice as I make my way through the rows of flowers, but it's pointless.
The man is six-foot-four of solid muscle.
"You don't need to follow me to the rose bushes, Bonetti. I doubt there's a Russian assassin hiding among the thorns."
He doesn't smile. He never does. "Your brother's orders were clear."
