Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lorenzo
The thing about Zara is that she doesn’t know how to be spoiled.
I’ve watched her for days now: watched her flinch when Mariella brings her breakfast, watched her hesitate before stepping into the boutique in Milan, watched her apologize for wanting things. Like wanting is a sin, like happiness is something she has to earn.
It made me want to burn down everyone who ever made her feel that way.
Tonight, she asked me to send the staff home.
I saw the words forming on her lips before she spoke them, saw the way she twisted her fingers together, the way she bit the inside of her cheek.
Bravery, I’ve learned, looks different on her than it does on most people.
It’s quiet, trembling, flickering in her eyes.
But it’s there, always there, underneath that fragile shell she’s built around herself.
“Can it be just us tonight?” She asked, and I would’ve given her the moon if she’d asked for it.
So I sent Mariella home, sent the chef and the groundskeepers home with instructions to return tomorrow.
And now I’m standing in the kitchen of the villa with my sleeves rolled up , hands in warm, soapy water. My wife sits on the marble countertop, her posture tense, watching as I wash the dishes.
She’s wearing my black dress shirt. On her, it’s oversized, the hem brushing her thighs. Bare legs, ankles crossed, toes flexing against the cool stone as she watches me rinse the last of the risotto from a pan.
We made together.
I was still adjusting to the domesticity of it.
The way she handed me a wooden spoon, told me to stir while she chopped herbs, her tongue caught between her teeth in focus.
She laughed when I salted the pasta water too late.
The way she tasted the sauce from my finger, no hesitation, her lips warm, eyes finding mine and holding there.
It was dangerous, this feeling. Wanting more than her body. This craving her laughter, her comfort, her trust.
“She’s still struggling with the lifestyle,” I had told my cousin on the phone yesterday. He laughed and said, “She’ll get used to it. They always do. And then you’ll wish they didn’t.”
But she’s not them. She’s not a woman who marries for wealth, who spends freely without questioning its origin. Zara flinched at price tags. She thanks me for every gift, as if I’d given her a kidney.
The money, the power, the family name—it’s all just noise.
Status I never asked for, responsibilities I never wanted.
My father’s voice is always there, reminding me that everything I do is for the Falcone legacy, that any weakness is a crack in the family’s foundation.
Every decision weighed against the expectations of generations, every move shadowed by the threat of disappointing men who value tradition over happiness.
But her? Zara, with her broken heart and her fierce, fragile hope?
She’s the only thing that’s ever felt real.
“This is weird, right?” She asked now, watching me scrub a pan. “The head of the Falcone empire, washing dishes.”
I glanced over my shoulder at her. “I’ve washed dishes before.”
“Bullshit.”
“I have. In college, before I dropped out.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You went to college?”
“For a year.” I handed her a plate to dry. “Business. My father’s idea. I spent most of it drinking and fighting and fucking my way through the female population of Florence.”
She snorted, but there’s no judgment in it. “Charming.”
“I was a different man then.”
“Were you?”
I paused, the question settling between us. I turned off the water, drying my hands on a towel, and turned to face her fully. She was watching me with those eyes—the ones that see too much, that pierce through every wall I’ve ever built.
“I was lost,” I admitted. “Angry. I didn’t know what I wanted, so I took whatever I could get. Women, drugs, violence—it was all the same.”
“What changed?”
You, I wanted to say.
The moment I saw you sitting at my bar, drowning in your own misery, looking like the world had chewed you up and spit you out. The moment I realized I’d burn it all down just to see you smile.
But I don’t say that.
“I found something worth filling the void,” I said instead.
She didn’t ask what. She just looked at me, and I see the walls around her heart—the ones she’s been so carefully lowering—flicker.
Then she kicked a spray of bubbles at me.
They landed on my chest, my arms, and a few on my cheek. I blink, stunned, and she bursts into laughter—genuine, surprised laughter that lights up her whole face.
“What was that?” I asked, my voice low.
“Bubble fight.” She grinned, scooping up another handful. “You’re too serious.”
“Am I?”
“Very.”
She tried to kick up bubbles again, but this time I caught her ankle and gently pulled her toward me.
Her legs wrapped around my waist as she slid off the counter into my arms. Wet, soapy bubbles smear between us, but I ignore them, instead focusing on her laughs and squirms, trying to escape. Her laughter ringing out as I held her.
“Let me go,” she gasped between giggles.
“Never.”
“Lorenzo—”
I kissed her, cutting off her protest. When I pull back, her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright, her lips parted.
“Now you’ve done it,” I murmured.
She raised an eyebrow. “Done what?”
“Started a war.”
She attempted to slip free, and I let her go because watching her run was almost as good as catching her. She darted through the kitchen, bare feet slapping the tile, glancing back with her hair wild and my shirt floating around her thighs.
“Catch me if you can, old man.”
The villa was a maze of rooms and hallways, and she’s fast—quicker than I expected, darting through the dining room, skidding around the corner, her laughter echoing off the walls. I let her think she’s winning. I let her believe she’ll escape.
But I know this house. I grew up in it. And I know exactly where she’s headed.
Sure enough, I heard her footsteps slow as she reached the double doors, I heard her breathless pause as she realized it was a dead end. When I round the corner, she was standing with her back to the shelves, hands up in mock surrender, chest heaving.
“Truce?” she asked.
“No.”
I crossed the room in three strides. She attempts to duck past me, but I block her, placing my arms on either side of her head, trapping her against the shelves.
“Nowhere to run, Tesoro.” Nodding to where I have her trapped between me and a first edition of Dante’s Inferno.
I’ve noticed that—the way her pupils go wide when I speak in my mother tongue, the way her body leans in. She doesn’t know most of the words yet. But I know she feels the weight of it, even if she doesn’t know the meaning. She feels the way it claims her.
“You’re cornered,” I continued, my voice dropping. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“That you’re a sore winner.”
I leaned in, my lips brushing her ear. “I haven’t won yet.”
Then I kissed her neck, her head fell back, her hands coming up to grip my shoulders. I trailed my mouth down her throat, tasting the salt of her skin, feeling her pulse flutter beneath my lips. She moaned, and I felt it in my chest, in my gut, down to the base of my fucking spine.
But then a book fell from the shelf behind her, landing on the floor with a heavy thump. She startled, looking down, and I seen her eyes go wide.
“Oh no. Not the books.”
I glanced at the fallen volume, then back at her. “You’re worried about books right now?”
“These are probably worth more than my entire life.”
“Probably,” I said bluntly.
“Well, that’s rude.”
I reached up and swept another armful of books off the shelf. They crashed to the floor, leather-bound and ancient, spines cracking, pages splaying. She yelped, trying to stop me, but I was already reaching for more.
“Stop!” She grabbed my wrist, laughing and horrified at the same time. “Lorenzo, stop, they’re—”
“I don’t care about the books.” I cradled her face, my thumb tracing the flush on her cheek, forcing her to see me.
“I care about your laughter. I care about the way you wear my shirt, bubbles tangled in your hair, racing through the house. These books are just paper. You are what matters here—the only thing that makes all of this mean anything.”
She stared at me, her chest rising and falling, her eyes shimmering.
“I must do what my wife says,” I murmured, releasing her. I step back, holding up my hands. “If you want me to stop, I’ll stop.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, softly: “I don’t want you to stop.”
“Then what do you want?”
She stepped forward, closing the distance between us. Her hands sliding up my chest, around my neck, and she pulled me down into a kiss.
When she pulled back, she was smiling. “I want to stay here with you. Just like this.”
In that moment, I realized: I don’t deserve her.
But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to.
We didn’t have sex that night.
I want to. God, I want to. Every fiber of my being is screaming to lay her down on this rug and worship every inch of her, to hear her moan my name, to lose myself inside her until we’re both breathless and ruined.
But she’s still sore from all the times I’ve taken her tight little pussy across Italy.
I can see it in the way she shifts her weight, the way she winces when I step between her legs.
And as much as I love being between her thighs—as much as I crave the way she falls apart for me—I want this more.
Her head on my chest, her fingers tracing lazy patterns on my skin.
The fire crackles in the hearth. The books we knocked over still lay scattered on the floor.
“What did you dream about?” I asked, my voice low in the quiet of the room. “When you were a little girl?”
She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Lots of things. Going to school, leaving California, traveling…”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Life happened.” She shrugged against my chest. “Money. Responsibility. I had to work. And then I met my ex, and he said it was a stupid dream, that I should focus on something practical, and I just… I let it go.”
I felt a surge of anger at this man—this ghost who still haunts her, who made her feel small. “He was wrong.”
“I know that now.”
“What do you dream about now?”
She looked up at me, her eyes searching mine. “I don’t know. I haven’t let myself think like that in a long time.”
“Then let yourself now.”
“What about you?” she asked. “What did you dream about?”
I thought about it, about the boy I was, angry and lost, suffocating under the weight of the Falcone name. About the man I became, cold and calculating, taking what I wanted because I’d learned that nothing was given for free.
“I dreamed of getting out,” I said finally. “Of being free. Of having a life that was mine, not my family’s.”
“And now?”
I looked down at her. At the firelight dancing in her eyes. At the way she fit against me, like she was made to be here.
“Now I dream of you.”
“You already have me,” she whispered as her cheeks turned rosy.
We talked for hours after that. About her mother, who she lost too young. About her siblings, the family I wish I didn’t have. About the future—something we’ve never discussed, not really, not like this.
“I want to go back to school,” she admitted, her voice small. “I want to be a vet. I want to help animals, to make a difference, to do something that matters.”
“Then do it.”
“It’s been years, Lorenzo. I’d have to start over. Take prerequisites, apply to programs, study for exams—”
“Then do it.” I repeated.
She looks at me, searching for a catch. “You’d be okay with that? Me being gone, studying, having a life outside of… this?”
“Zara.” I tilted her chin so that her eyes are on mine. “I want you to have a life. I want you to have dreams. I want to watch you become everything you were meant to be.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. They hung in the air, heavy and raw, and I watched her eyes go wide, watched her breath catch.
“You love me?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper.
“Con tutto il cuore. With all my heart.”
She kissed me then. Soft and desperate and full of everything she can’t say. And when she pulls back, her eyes are wet, but she’s smiling.
“I love you too,” she said.
“Again.”
“I love you, Lorenzo.”
She settled back against my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her closer.
As I laid there on the floor of the library with my wife in my arms and the fire burning low, I thought about the future.
About nights like this. About chasing her through the house, hearing her laugh, and watching her eyes light up.
About cooking together, washing dishes, and fighting over books we don’t need.
About falling asleep with her in my arms, her breath warm against my neck, her heart beating in time with mine.
I thought about kids. About the ones we might have someday—little girls with her smile and my stubbornness, little boys with her heart and my fire.
About teaching them to cook, to swim, to love without reservation.
About watching her become a mother, fierce and tender and everything I never knew I needed.
I thought about growing old. About gray hair and wrinkled hands and a lifetime of nights just like this one.
As much as I craved the way she falls apart for me, the sounds she maked, the way she said my name—this was different.
This was intimacy of a different kind. This was her letting me close, letting me in, trusting me with the broken pieces of her heart.
And I’d never take it for granted.
“You’re thinking too loud,” she murmured, her voice sleepy.
“I’m thinking about you.”
“Liar,” she shot back.
“Thinking about our future.”
She lifted her head, her eyes finding mine in the firelight. “Our future?”
“Our future.” I brushed a strand of hair from her face. “The one where you become a veterinarian. Where we have kids. Where I spend the rest of my life chasing you through a house.”
“You want kids?”
“With you? Yes.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Then she pressed a kiss to my chest and settled back down.
“I’d like that,” she whispered. “I’d like all of that.”
I held her tighter, feeling her breathing slow, feeling her body relax into sleep. The fire crackles. The wind whispers through the olive trees.
And for the first time in my life, I’s fallen asleep with a full heart.
My wife in my arms. My future at my fingertips.
And the knowledge that whatever came next, we’d face it together.