I nod. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For everything,” I say, my voice frayed.
“Do you remember the morning after you slept in my bed?”
I turn to face him fully. He looks as calm as the ocean behind me. A fragile thread of faith tightens again, he will pull me out of this pit I’ve fallen into.
“You asked me a question,” he continues. “What would I do if you weren’t my enemy’s daughter?”
I nod. The memory warms me. For the first time, there is no Hunter in my thoughts, only Salvario. My mind is filledwith everything that is Salvario: the memories I shared with him, the memories so powerful they kept me alive for eighteen months even when there was no hope left. These memories are something Hunter can never compete with, no matter how deeply he has buried himself in my mind. He only got this far because he wore Salvario’s name. And now Salvario is here.
What if he isn’t looking at me the way he used to? I must not be looking at him the way I used to, either. We still have our love, and the memories of it. Those will bring us back to where we were.
“Will you answer it now?”
He smiles. “I can answer it now, you’re no longer my enemy’s daughter.”
I nod.
“I want to keep you with me through every fall and every rise. I don’t want to see a day when you aren’t by my side. I want to tell you, Princess, that everything I could give, I’ve already given all of it to you. And I know no one can keep it safer than you. Not even me.”
His words bring a smile to my face and a lingering warmth to my freezing heart.
“I will never give up on us, Salvario.”
“Is that a promise?”
I nod, though uncertainty flickers through me. But I don’t let it linger. I will not give up on us.
“Let’s go to Naples.”
He tilts his head at my sudden words.
“I want to go back there for our new start.” It’s the same place where all the problems that stand between us started, and it will be the same place where they all end.
He strokes my hair. “If that’s what you want, then let’s go to Naples. Anything for you, Princess.”
I smile. And it’s not forced.
Chapter 33
Elowen
“If you weren’t my enemy’s daughter.”He grips my chin with his gloved fingers, tilting my face up toward him. I’m sitting in his bed, tangled in his dark sheets, and he’s standing before me. “I would have tied you to me. I would have kept you locked in this mansion with me, where no one else could lay eyes on you. I would give you my scarred soul in exchange for your pristine one. You’re my morning, Princess, and when a man sees morning after decades of night, he traps that morning so he never has to see the dark again.”
He leans down. My breath stops all at once, but I feel more alive than I have in what feels like forever. His lips hover just above mine, a whisper of distance between us. I feel the same ache of wanting to kiss him and the impossibility of it.
“I have nothing to give you. Whatever little I had, you already snatched without asking. Now it’s my turn. I’ll take everything from you—your heart, your soul, your body. I’ll embed myself so deep inside you, you will never be able toexorcise me. I’ll never leave you, Princess. You’ll see me while awake, and you’ll see me in all your beautiful dreams and...” He pulls back. Now his face has changed, it’s the exact same eyes, but everything else is different. Hunter. “...in all your nightmares.”
I open my eyes, looking around in panic. My heartbeat pounds in my ears; sweat slicks my entire back. I wipe the beads from my forehead.
“What happened, Princess?” Salvario asks, looking up from his laptop.
We’re flying to Naples in his private jet. He’s sitting across from me.
“Just a nightmare,” I murmur.
