Stefano does not wait for permission to kiss me. His mouth finds mine with a softness that feels nearly private despite the room around us, as if the ceremony has opened into something more subdued and more absolute.
His mouth finds mine with a softness that feels almost private despite the room around us. His hand cups my jaw. Mine settles against his chest.
For one second, he is not the don. Not the man people fear. Not the man who once bought me in a room full of monsters.
He is my husband.
When we pull apart, Erin is crying openly. Dolores is crying harder. Omar looks furious at everyone for making him stand through this. Heath watches us for half a second before he steps forward and wraps his arms around us both.
Stefano freezes.
Then he bends and holds him.
Erin crashes into us a second later, and suddenly there are too many arms, too many flowers, too many people laughing through tears.
It is messy.
It is perfect.
Later, after dinner and dancing and Omar reluctantly allowing Erin to pull him onto the floor for one song, Stefano and I slip away to the small suite above the conservatory, leaving the noise behind us.
The city glows through the windows.
My dress is half-unbuttoned. His jacket is gone. The room is warm and ours for a little while.
He stands behind me at the mirror, brushing his mouth against the arc of my shoulder.
His hands rest on my stomach.The baby kicks again beneath his palm, and the man who has stared down guns and enemies without blinking looks undone by one small movement beneath his hand.
I turn in his arms.
“What are you thinking?”
“That she will have your eyes.”
“You have no way of knowing that.”
“I have decided.”
“That is not how genetics work.”
“It should be.”
I laugh, and he kisses me again.
Slowly.
No urgency. No fear waiting behind it. Pure warmth and the gentle certainty of his hands on me, his mouth against mine, the future already moving below my heart.
When he draws back, his thumb catches a fine strand of hair near my cheek.
“We still have not named her,” I say. “You suggested Gianna.”
“It is a beautiful name.”
“It is your mother’s name. I do not want our daughter turned into a family memorial before she has a chance to become herself.”
He watches me for a moment, then nods. “Fair.”
