Chapter 25 #2
He steps onto the terrace, and the world seems to still as he freezes, his eyes skating over the exquisite tableau.
He’s dressed in black, as if he cannot help himself, as if softness is something he only allows in private.
His scar is visible at his open collar and his face is unreadable for half a second.
Then his gaze finds me, stays, fixated and unable to look away. The expression that crosses him is so raw it nearly knocks me backwards.
Shock.
Hunger.
Elation.
Then something like reverence.
“Lucia,” he says, voice hoarse, as if my name costs him. His throat works. “What is this?” he asks, almost harshly, as if tenderness offends him.
I take another step forward and I feel my uncles step away, giving us…
giving this love that has felt explosive right from the very start, room to breathe.
To grow. “It’s exactly what you think it is, caro.
It’s me, showing you that I did not run,” I tell him, because of course that is the first thing between us, the old ghost that always hovers.
His mouth tightens. “I know.”
“And I am not leaving,” I continue, each word steadying me. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever again in the ways that matter. This,” I say softly, “is me coming back to you on purpose.”
Silence stretches.
Then he moves, closing the distance in three strides, stopping in front of me as if he’s afraid to breathe too hard. His hands hover, then settle at my waist.
“Amuri,” he murmurs, the word rougher than prayer. “What are you doing to me? It should be me, doing this. I planned… I planned a night for us. To show you how much I love you. How much I regret—”
I place my fingers on his mouth as I lift my chin.
“The moment I saw you,” I begin, voice trembling, “I thought you were danger wrapped in a beautiful suit. I thought you were the kind of man my father warned me about.”
His eyes flicker, burn and possess.
“And you were.”
A sharp inhale.
“But you were also the first man who looked at me like I was not something to be handled,” I continue. “You looked at me like I was inevitable. Like I mattered. Like I was worth the risk of wanting.”
His jaw tightens. “I wanted you,” he admits, quiet and brutal. “So fucking much it terrified me. It still does.”
“I know,” I whisper. “And I was terrified of it, too. Terrified of you. Terrified of what loving you would cost.”
“And now?” he croaks carefully.
My hands rise, trembling as they cup his face. “Now, I’m done being terrified.”
His breath shudders. “Amuri mia, I did wrong by you,” he says, the words scraped out of somewhere deep.
“I thought silence was protection. I thought I could give you carefully selected pieces of myself and call it love. But I was wrong. So wrong. I pushed you away, then called you out for running. For that, I’m sorry. So very sorry.”
I hear sniffles behind me, quickly stifled, but I’m not even concerned by our audience. My choice to live our love and flaws in the open starts tonight. Or not at all.
“And I thought running would save me,” I reply, tears burning. “But all it did was leave us bleeding in different places. I’m sorry, Giovanni.”
His eyes close briefly. “I cannot promise you peace,” he says.
“I don’t want peace,” I tell him, fierce. “Well, I want it occasionally. But I want you. All of you. The man, the monster, the husband, the bastard who would burn the world before he lets me go.”
His eyes snap open, dark and stunned. “You are mine,” he whispers.
“And you are mine,” I return, smiling through tears. “So let us stop pretending we are anything less than ruined and real.”
For a moment, he simply stares. Then he bows his head and presses his forehead to mine.
“My wife,” he murmurs, as if tasting it anew. “Fuck, I love you, Lucia. I’m insanely, hopelessly and hopefully in love with you.”
“My husband,” I breathe back. “I love you madly. So very much.”
He groans, snatches me closer, and when he kisses me it is absolute, unapologetic possession. But it is also something else now, something steadier beneath the heat.
An unbending promise.
The celebrant clears his throat softly behind us, an older man Caterina has procured with her usual competence, dressed simply, respectfully, as if he understands that what is happening here is not performance or spectacle, but an overdue reckoning.
A choice.
Giovanni takes his time to lift his head, and when we turn to face our small audience, he doesn’t let go of my hand. His thumb stays at my pulse, as if he needs to feel the proof of me.
“We are gathered,” the celebrant says gently, “to renew vows made almost two years ago. Vows that have been tested, strained, but survived.”
Giovanni’s jaw tightens. His gaze never leaves mine.
“Do you, Giovanni Dragoni, take Lucia Dragoni again, not in power, not as possession alone, but as deliberate choice?”
His answer is immediate, rough with truth. “I take her,” he says. “In full. In honesty. In the light.”
My breath catches and hot tears prickle my eyes.
“And do you, Lucia Dragoni, take Giovanni Dragoni again, not as a cage, not as a war, but as a life?”
I lift my chin, tears burning. “I take him,” I whisper. “With my eyes open. In the deepest love. And with no more running.”
The celebrant nods once. “Then speak your vows.”
Giovanni’s fingers tighten around mine. He lifts our tangled fingers between us.
Then he takes a chest-shaking breath. “The moment I saw you,” he begins, voice low, devastating, “I knew my life had shifted. You looked at me like I was a man before I was a name. You fought me like you did not believe I was inevitable.” His throat works.
“I thought love meant control. I thought silence was protection. I was wrong.”
His gaze sharpens. “So I vow this: you will never again have only parts of me. You’ll have all of me, Lucia. The man, the truth, the cost. And I will spend my life earning the fact that you stayed.”
My heart feels too full and I swallow hard. “The moment I saw you,” I echo, voice trembling, “I thought you were danger. I thought you were everything my father warned me about.”
Giovanni stills.
“And you were,” I admit softly, a small smile breaking through.
“But you were also the first man who looked at me like I mattered more than fear.” My hands rise to his face.
“I ran because I was terrified of loving you. Terrified of what it would cost.” I breathe in, steadying myself. “But I am done being terrified.”
His eyes darken.
“I vow to stay,” I whisper. “Because I see you clearly at last. Because you’re my home, and I choose you.”
The celebrant exhales, almost moved despite himself. “Then it is done,” he says. “Renewed. Reclaimed. Sealed.”
Giovanni’s voice drops. “Pi l’eternità, mia mugghieri.”
I smile through tears. “Forever, my love,” I echo.
Behind us, Ella makes a choked sound that might be a sob. My uncles clap fiercely, awkwardly, as if they are applauding survival itself. Caterina mutters something in Sicilian that sounds suspiciously like finally.
Giovanni turns his head sharply. “That’s enough from you, nannuzza,” he growls, though there is no real bite in it.
Caterina tosses her head. “I’m far too young to be anyone’s granny. But make some babies and I might allow it.”
Ella grins. “Oh, nice!”
“Go,” Giovanni orders, already impatient to have me to himself. “I want to be alone with my wife.”
My uncles kiss my cheeks, murmuring blessings.
Ella squeezes my hands. “I love this for you,” she whispers.
Then they are gone, petals underfoot, laughter fading into the night.
Only us.
The terrace glows with candlelight.
Caterina has left food laid out like an offering, and Giovanni pulls me into a chair, feeding me with his own hands as if this, too, is a vow.
“Eat,” he murmurs.
“I’m not hungry,” I lie automatically.
His brow lifts. “Lucia.”
I open my mouth obediently, and his mouth curves with satisfaction. When the plates are cleared, he holds out his hand. “Dance with me.”
I blink. “You dance?”
“I do everything,” he replies, and draws me close. “You should know this by now, but I’m happy to refresh your memory.”
We sway beneath the lanterns, my cheek against his chest where the scar lives, where his heart beats steady and stubborn.
For a long moment, there’s no war. No running. Just the quiet aftermath of choosing.
“I love you,” he says gruffly, as if the words scrape on the way out.
My breath catches. “I love you too.”
His arms tighten. Then, without warning, he swings me up into his arms.
I gasp, laughing. “Giovanni!”
“Enough,” he mutters against my throat. “I’ve waited long enough. I need to be inside you more than I want air.”
He carries me upstairs, through halls that no longer feel like a prison of my first weeks here, into our suite where candlelight flickers low.
There, he sets me down gently, as if I am something sacred.
His hands frame my face. “This time,” he murmurs, “no silence. No distance. Just us.”
His kiss is slower now, reverent, unhurried, and when he draws me into bed it is with tenderness that feels almost unbearable after everything.
He peels my dress off, kissing down my body, anointing me with his love and devotion. And when I’m naked and beneath him, when he’s thrusting inside me like I’m the last true pleasure in this wide world, I let the tears fall. Cry through my climax and his.
Sob quietly in the aftermath and rebirth of our love.
Later still, when the candles have burned low and the estate is quiet again, he turns to me with a gleam in his eyes. “What are you thinking, amuri?”
I snort softly, exhausted and full. “I’m thinking we’re going to be so fucking nauseatingly happy, the world will throw up when it sees us coming.”
His laugh is warm, unguarded.
He pulls me closer.
This runaway wife is back exactly where she belongs.