“When you talked about becoming a vet, about loving animals.” I scratched the puppy’s head, inviting belly rubs. “You lit up when you saw his face. You were alive in a way I’ve never seen you.”
Her eyes were glassy again. “Lorenzo…”
“He’s yours. I didn’t know what to name him. I figured you’d want to pick.”
She didn’t move. She just stared at the puppy, and then at me, and then back at the puppy, as if trying to reconcile the man who’d just fucked her senseless against a window with the man who’d bought her a dog.
“I don’t understand you,” she whispered.
The puppy climbed into her lap and started licking her chin.
She let out a broken, overwhelmed sob that cracked something open in my chest.
“You’re going back to school,” I said.
“What?”
“You’re too smart to waste your life at some shitty marketing job. You have too much love to give.” I ran my hand through her hair, tangling my fingers in the dark strands. “You’re going to become a vet. I’m going to pay for everything. And you’re going to let me.”
“I can’t,”
“It’s not negotiable, Tesoro,” I said, voice dark and sure. “I’d build you a clinic, buy every damn animal in the city just to see that look again.”
She was crying now, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
“You’re insane,” she said.
“For you? Absolutely.”
I pulled her into my lap, dog and all, and held her against my chest.
Zara tilted her head up to look at me. “And what do you get out of all this?”
I lowered my mouth to her forehead first, then her nose, then finally her lips.
“Everything,” I whispered against her mouth.
Her eyes searched mine afterward, vulnerable in a way that made something dangerous shift low in my chest. The puppy had fallen asleep between us, tiny body warm and limp against her stomach, but neither of us moved.
Outside, the city glowed endlessly beneath the windows.
Inside, the silence felt heavier.
I brushed my knuckles softly down her cheek before speaking again.
“I’ve got one more surprise for you.”
Her brows knit together slightly. “Another one?”
A faint smile tugged at my mouth.
“Call it my last attempt to earn your love.” My voice came out rougher than I meant, thinner at the edges.
I know from the look on her face that she sensed the vulnerability in my words. They weren’t calculated or controlled; they were raw in a way that only she could bring out of me.
“Lorenzo…”
“Be ready in the morning,” I said quietly, brushing my mouth against her temple. “We leave at ten.”
