Chapter 40
DANI
I worry Oscar might do something vengeful to Dexter, but then I remember the Knights. A formidable force. Oscar Ramos would never touch them.
That night, we sit around the table; my parents, and I, with Dexter. Talking, laughing, sharing. Just like families do.
Later, before we go up to sleep, Dexter gives me a moment. I sit on the veranda with Papai. He’s tired. Still recovering from everything, but there’s a light in his eyes I haven’t seen in weeks.
“Your husband is a good man,” he says, voice low.
I chuckle. “He’s not my husband, Papai. We’re divorced.”
I hear a low gasp.
“But this time, I feel that when we marry, it will be for real.” I say it without hesitation, as if getting married again to Dexter is the most natural thing in the world. As easy, as natural and as necessary as breathing.
“He’s not Paul Knight,” Papai adds. “He’s earned our respect. Yours most of all.”
I smile softly. “He did more than that. He gave us a second chance.” I don’t voice my next words, but Dexter rescued me. I never thought I needed rescuing, because I’ve always prided myself on being a strong woman, but I’d signed a pact with the devil, a pact that meant I’d have to share Ramos’ bed. It scared me. I shiver. Dexter rescued me from that. He knew I’d do anything for my family. Even that.
Papai squeezes my hand. “You were always strong, filha. But the two of you are stronger together. Did you know he would come for you?”
I’d blocked him out, not wanting to trust again, but I wasn’t completely surprised when I saw him. I wondered if he remembered how good we were together, just like I did in my many despondent moments. I wondered if he remembered how perfect we were for one another.
Turns out, he did.
We sit quietly, the breeze carrying the scent of gardenias and the sound of the city beyond the gates. It’s a scent I’ll cherish and take back with me when we return to New York in a few days’ time.
***
Everything feels different.
Lighter.
Brighter.
The heaviness of recent weeks has lifted. It’s like when rain has fallen and scrubbed everything clean again.
Dexter holds my hand in the car. He doesn’t let go. Not once.
When we get back to his penthouse, our home, I pause in the doorway of the bedroom. For so long, this space represented distance. Lines we never crossed. Feelings we never said aloud.
Now… it’s ours.
He shuts the door gently behind us. I turn to him, heart racing.
“You know what I realized?” he says, voice low.
“Tell me.”
“You didn’t just change my life. You changed me.” He steps closer. “You made me believe I could love someone. That I could be loved back. You didn’t see my name, or my money, or the mess I tried to hide.” He presses a hand over his heart. “You saw this. The part I buried. And somehow… you loved it anyway.”
Tears sting the corners of my eyes. “You made me believe in things again too, Dexter. I’m so used to people writing me off as just a pretty face, but you took the time to get to know who I am. You actually see me. No one else ever dug deep enough.”
He pulls me into his arms. “I love you so much, sometimes it scares me.”
I lift my head up. “Scares you?”
“If something had happened to you. It was bad enough when you got mugged, and now, seeing you with Oscar Ramos, sitting across the table from him, looking sad. It was heartbreaking.”
“I was sad. I was so sad.” I press my face into his chest, breathing him in. He’s everything I need. Safety, steadfastness, and home. For the first time since this entire nightmare began, I believe we’ll be okay. “I want to trust you,” I whisper.
He brushes my cheek. “You don’t have to want anything. But if you choose to trust me… then I’ll spend every day proving you were right to.”
Our eyes lock as we hold hands. I’m still trying to process the storm that just tore through my life, and this man before me is a promise I never let myself believe in.
Dexter Knight.
My husband. Or ex-husband.
My heart. My life. My everything. I swallow the lump in my throat, overwhelmed. He cares. He really cares. More than that, this man loves me, and he’s not only told me, he’s shown me.
"You didn’t shave" I run my hand across his stubble. It feels alien on my fingers. He’s usually cleanshaven, his skin smooth as a baby’s.
"I haven’t slept much," he confesses, wiping a hand over his face, like he’s wiping away the stress and exhaustion of the past few days.
He looks rough, and exactly like he’s been sleep-deprived for days.
"Oh, Dexter," I murmur, putting my arms around his waist again and leaning into his hard chest. The beat of his heart against my ear is reassuring.
"I couldn’t bear the thought that I’d lost you. That I might have been too late."
A few more days, and he would have been too late. I shiver, not wanting to dwell on that ugly thought. I look up at him. “You came, you found me. I’m yours, Dexter,” I say softly. “I choose you.”
Later, as we lie tangled in sheets and quiet laughter, Dexter turns toward me.
“There’s one more thing.”
“Oh no,” I groan. “Do I need to sign something?”
“Worse.”
I raise an eyebrow and sit up. “Worse?”
“You need to attend a Knight family dinner. The old man has no idea what’s been going on these past few weeks. What Rio and the guys have been doing. He thinks we just accepted what he did to your father and he has no idea that you left me and returned to Brazil, that you divorced me, and that I went after you."
"Some father," I murmur, stroking his face.
"I could be dead, and he wouldn’t know, or care."
My face scrunches up in disbelief. "He would care. You’re his son, Dexter."
He presses a kiss on my lips, "Amor, do you really still not know what this man is like?"
I refuse to let this man poison what Dexter and I have. I refuse to give air to anything about him. "I love you, Dexter. I think I started to fall in love with you when we were trying to convince Raquel." He smiles at the memory. I clear my throat. "But I love you more with every passing moment, and I promise to take care of your precious heart."
He doesn’t speak, and it feels like something old, dark and rotten, something that’s been buried deep inside him, is starting to loosen its grip.
I’m determined to erase all traces of the guilt and sick belief he has that he didn’t deserve to be loved after the way he treated his mother. I want this man to know he is capable of love, and of being loved. He rests his forehead against mine. "I love you.”
“And I love you. We found each other, Dexter. We deserve each other. We were meant for each other."
He breathes out a sigh. "Yes," he murmurs. "Yes, we did, we do, we are.” We fall into another kiss, and I sense that we’re not going to sleep much tonight.
“You said I had to attend a Knight family dinner,” I remind him. “Cari told me about them.”
“She’s only been to one.”
I chuckle. “She said that one was enough.”
“You’ll come?”
I groan dramatically. “Fine. But if your father says something smug, I’m throwing wine in his face.”
Dexter grins. “I’d pay to see that, and don’t worry, I’ll back you up.”
“You better.”
He kisses me once, slow and deep. “Welcome home, Mrs. Knight.”
“Dexter, we’re divorced.”
“Need to fix that.”