Chapter 34
GIO
The wedding began to wind down not too long after she ran off, so I went home. I kept calling until she finally texted back telling me she was fine and that she needed to deal with something on her own.
Of course she did.
Having her accept my help is like asking for the impossible. But whatever was on that note scared her at first before it made her angry. I wondered if it could be Sergey. If he’d returned and decide to taunt her. It would be like him.
If it is…fuck, the things I’ll do to him. She wouldn’t be able to stop me, either. I know she can handle things alone, but she shouldn’t have to. I’m here now.
As I’m about to go take a shower, my phone vibrates. And when I look on the screen, hoping it’s her, I’m fucking disappointed.
“Yeah?” I growl at my security detail stationed around my large property.
“Sir, there’s one pissed-off woman demanding to be let in,” one of my armed guards informs me.
“You tell him to open that fucking door right now!”
Aww, my wife came to see me.
I grin instantly.
Of course, I completely ignore the fact that she sounds like she wants to rip my head off. But I don’t care as long as she’s here. Where I can touch her. See for myself that she’s okay. She actually used the address I gave her. I wanted her to know where I lived just in case.
“Let her in,” I tell him.
“Yes, sir.” He disconnects the call while I head for the front door.
As soon as I open it, her emerald eyes turn to slits, and before I know what the hell is going on, her hand slices in the air and lands hard across my cheek.
“Damn, baby.” I rub at the sting. “You missed me that badly, huh?”
She kicks the door closed behind her, her features flared with her fury. “You idiot! Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
She pushes at my chest with both palms while confusion settles around my head.
“What are you talking about?” I keep a few inches between us, because I can tell that if I touch her right now, she’s going to go off like firecrackers on the Fourth of July.
And the only time I want her going off like that is when I’m inside her. Then again, her being angry at me usually does lead to…
Her high heels snap across my porcelain floor as she proceeds inside, flinging her arm in the air. “What the hell were you thinking, going to the Russians?! Do you realize Konstantin wouldn’t hesitate to kill you?!”
She stares at me, her eyes gleaming with ferocity. And through the crack of her anger, her shoulders sag and she exhales heavily.
Oh, damn. My baby was worried about me. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning.
My mouth jerks as I shrug. “Well, since you don’t want me, why would it matter to you if I got myself killed?” I take one step forward.
She shakes her head and lets out a grunt, balling her hands at her sides. “You’re such a reckless idiot.” She stares deep into my eyes, her chest rising and falling with intensity.
“How about you come a little closer and tell me more about what an idiot I am?” I march another step.
Her jaw strains. “I’m serious, Gio. He could’ve killed you.” Her brows snap as her voice falls.
My heart flips in my chest. “So you do actually like me, then?”
A slow-growing smile falls on my face.
She throws her head back and releases a rough exhale. “Oh, shut up, will you?”
And it’s then she erases the rest of the void between us and rushes into my arms. Her gaze fits me tight as though, for once, she wants to stay.
“I like you enough not to want you dead. So don’t die, okay?”
I brush my knuckles down the side of her velvety cheek, and she closes her eyes and sighs.
“Is that all this is?” I whisper. “You liking me just enough?” My mouth leans into the corner of hers, leaving a barely there kiss behind. “Hmm?”
My fingers snake into her strands, and I yank her head back with force.
“Gio…” she groans, making my heartbeats leap and my cock harden.
“Say it, bambina. Tell me I matter to you. Tell me that you see no one else but me in your future…” My lips hang above hers, only a breath between them. “If you do, I promise that the next time I decide to do something stupid, I’ll ask your permission first.”
“No, you won’t,” she breathes, all throaty and hoarse.
“No, I won’t,” I chuckle. “Especially not when it comes to your safety.”
“I don’t need you to protect me…” Her hands sink into my hair.
I nip her bottom lip, fisting her hair in a rough palm, searching the depths of her eyes as though searching for her soul.
“I know you don’t, but I want you to want me to, Red. I want to be the one you think about, the one you call when you have something to say. The one who has your back while you have mine.” I let my thumb brush against her jaw. “Don’t you get it by now? I want everything with you.”
She roughs an inhale, her eyes glazing over, expressing things she’s afraid to say out loud. “What if we never get everything? What then?”
“How would you know if we don’t try?”
I stare at her, wanting to kiss her, to strip off all the layers that keep her from giving me everything—body, heart, and all those insecurities. I’d take care of the first two while extinguishing the third. But every time we’re one step forward, she takes two steps back.
“What are you afraid of?” I ask. “That this might actually work out? That I fall in love with you and that you, by some goddamn miracle, fall in love with me too?”
She flattens a palm against the center of my chest.
“I never wanted this,” she whispers.
“Never wanted what?”
Her lashes flutter to a close for a single fleeting moment before they open and she releases a heavy sigh. “I never wanted to feel safe in anyone’s arms before, but I feel safe in yours.”
My pulse pounds louder. Those words…they’ve jumpstarted my heart. I make her feel safe. This brave, strong, incredibly beautiful woman feels safe with me.
My hand comes to fit around the side of her throat. “You’re always safe with me, bambina.”
She lets out a bitter laugh, her pulse thrashing against my touch. “You have no idea who you’re getting yourself involved with.”
“I think I’ve known since the moment you threw that knife at me and tried ending my life.”
My chest swells when she gives me a tearful smile.
“I’m a mess, Gio.” She shakes her head and scoffs, vulnerability etched on her face, so much of it that I just want to cradle her.
“It’s a good thing I like to clean,” I challenge.
“I’m also not a morning person,” she informs me with a tilt of her chin, as though she wants to find something that will make me turn around and run.
I kiss the tip of her nose. “Then we sleep in.”
“I’m stubborn.”
“You don’t say?” I chuckle.
She swats my shoulder with the back of her hand, her grin unraveling the fused parts of my heart that have been waiting for her to unlock them.
Her brows slant into a frown. “I cry sometimes.”
I clasp my hands around both sides of her face and look straight into her soulful eyes. “Then I’ll be there to let you.”
“Gio…” she whispers, and my heartbeats grow unsteady from the sound of her broken voice.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I grasp her jaw and kiss her. “I don’t want to run from this, baby. Not when there are a million reasons to stay. And unfortunately for you, you’re every single one of those reasons.”
Her bottom lip quivers, and she slams her eyes shut, squeezing them as I go on.
“I’m never going to tire of you, Iseult. So you can say whatever you want, but nothing will ever push me away.”
“You don’t know that.” She looks back at me, tears battling to drip down her cheeks, but it’s as though she fights them with everything she has.
“Don’t ever tell me what I know.”
Her breaths ghost across my lips, warm and enticing.
“You were destined to be mine, Iseult Marino. So, go ahead…” I grab a handful of her hair with my other. “Run. I dare you. But know that in the end, I’ll always find you, and my arms will always be waiting to bring you home.”
A frown lines between her brows. “Why the hell do you want me?”
“Because you’re it for me, dummy.” The corner of my mouth winds up.
“Wow.” Her tear-stricken laugh is damn adorable. “That was so romantic.”
“What can I say?” I curl an arm around the small of her back and tug her to me. “You bring it out in me.”
“What else do I do?”
I drop both hands off of her, taking a few steps back, hoping I’m not about to single-handedly ruin this moment. “You make me happy. And I didn’t know what that meant until I met you.”
Slowly, I drop to one knee.
“W-what are you doing?” she whispers incredulously, her eyes growing round. “Get up. Please get up.”
But I don’t. Instead, I reach into my pocket and remove the ring I bought her last week.
“I’ve never been a perfect man,” I say. “And hell, you’re probably the least perfect woman I’ve ever met.”
She scoffs. And laughs. And cries, the tears freely rolling down her cheeks.
“But the thing is, Red, I don't need you to be perfect. I just need you to be mine. And I knew for quite a while that I was going to make you my wife. Now, I’m actually doing it.”
“Gio…we can’t,” she pants, her hand slowly lifting to cover her gaping mouth when I open the box.
“We can.” I hold her gaze. “If your father wants an alliance, then we’ll give him one. And we’re going to make it one fucking hell of an alliance, because I plan to knock you up as many times as possible.”
She swipes under her eyes. “You’re insane.”
“Insane is right, because sometimes what I feel for you feels like I’ve lost my mind.”
My heartbeats throb, waiting, hoping… I don’t know what I’ll do if she says no.
Actually I do. I’m gonna shove that ring down her finger and cement her to my bed, because this woman isn’t getting away from me.
“You really do have a way with words.” She releases another laugh, and my God, I could listen to her laughter for the rest of my life.
“I’m falling in love with you, Iseult Marino.”
She gasps softly. “You can’t love me.”
“Well, I do, my little bambina, and you’re just gonna have to live with that.”
Her teeth tug her bottom lip, her watery gaze full of confusion and disbelief.