Chapter 12 Giovanni #2
I realize how important this is to me. I need Meggie to understand that my affections don’t switch lanes like trucks on the highway. I need her to believe that when I said the words ti amo, I meant them.
“Meggie, I’ve never told anyone else that I love them. Ever.” I step closer, and her eyes hold onto mine as if there’s some kind of magical spell between us. “I’ve never said it because I’ve never felt this way before.”
“Why…” She clears her throat and tries again. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s true. It’s the only reason that I can give you, Meggie.”
Another step.
Her eyes are dry. I don’t know what I can see in them, but it isn’t the adoration or the love that I usually see whenever she looks at me, and this, more than anything she could possibly say, tells me how badly I’ve hurt her.
“You lied to me, Gio,” she whispers. “It doesn’t matter that you don’t love her. You didn’t tell me that you’re engaged to be married to someone else. You let me believe that…” She shakes her head and shrugs. “…that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that you and I could be together.”
Now, her eyes grow large with tears, and I reach out to catch them with my fingertip. But she pulls away, hugging her arms round herself as if she can contain the hurt inside.
“Please, Meggie, don’t shut me out.”
“Why not?” She sniffs loudly. “Isn’t that what you did after Elisabetta died? Shut everyone out? Or does that only work for people like you?”
She’s getting angry again. Good. I want her to be pissed off with me. Any emotion is better than no emotion; I couldn’t bear it if I took her innocence and her love and shriveled it into an ugly twisted kernel of mistrust and hatred. I would never forgive myself.
“This is different, fiore.” She flinches at my affectionate name for her as though I stabbed her in the eye with it. “When I told you how I felt about you, that was not a lie. When I said I love you, that was not a lie. When I told you how special you are, that was not—”
“Stop it, Gio.” She turns away as if she can’t stand the sight of me, and I swallow.
“Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter how many times you tell me it was the truth; it doesn’t change the fact that you lied about your fiancée.
” Her expression crumples. “Your fucking fiancée, Gio. Of all the things you could’ve kept secret from me, this was probably the worst.”
If she only knew what else I’ve kept secret from her. I’m a mafia don. Would she believe I didn’t tell her because I was trying to protect her?
“I know.” What else can I say? “I’m sorry, Meggie. I never wanted to hurt you.”
She studies me from beneath wet eyelashes.
“Do you believe me?” When she doesn’t answer, I continue, “Lucia isn’t a part of my life.
Meeting you was, well, it was like writing my own love story.
Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl tells him she loves him too.
There was no third person in this relationship, Meggie. There never will be, I promise you.”
Her shoulders drop, and she lowers her head to stare at the floor.
I wish I knew what she was thinking, but I’d bet that she’s questioning every other promise I made since we met.
I promised to keep Amber safe, and she managed to escape my security team and find a famous actress and her chihuahua.
I promised her that Steve Barone wouldn’t find them in New York City, and he managed to drop a warning note into her purse in plain sight of my men.
I watch her thought process mimic mine and settle on the real reason why I came back from the office in such a hurry.
“I-I have to go.”
She turns away, but I grab her hand and pull her towards me. She doesn’t look at me.
“I promised to protect you, fiore, and nothing has changed.”
I want to kiss her. I want to carry her into my bedroom and show her how much I love her. But I want her to want me too.
“He’s here.” She still won’t look at me, but she doesn’t pull her hand free. It’s a start. “I have to get away before…” She leaves the sentence hanging.
“We’ll go to Sicily. We’ll take the private jet; we can be there this evening. I can protect you, fiore. Let me protect you. Let me prove how much I care about you and Amber.”
She sighs heavily. “I don’t think I can, Gio.”
My heart thuds against my ribcage. “I’ll make it up to you, fiore. I will do whatever it takes to prove that I mean every word I say.”
“Every word?”
Fuck! She has a point, but I’m not giving up without a fight.
“You … this … us … is the only thing in my life worth fighting for, Meggie. Tell me what I can do.”
I pull her into my arms and stroke her hair. She is still my fiore, but she’s already rebuilding that shell around her, the one that I cracked when I brought her here and made her feel loved and protected and safe.
“I don’t know, Gio.” Her body shudders with the sobs that she has been holding in. “I don’t know if there’s anything you can do. I can’t even think about it. I need to get Amber away from here. Away from him.”
I feel the panic coursing through her veins. Lucia was an unwanted distraction, but now that she has let Amber’s father back in, the fear is consuming her all over again.
Suddenly, I know what to do.
I know how to prove my love to her.
I release her from my arms and, holding her hand tightly, I drop down onto one knee.
“Marry me, Meggie.”