Chapter 37
Matteo
Leaning on my elbow, I watch my wife in the quiet hush of morning, as soft light drifts through the window and settles gently across her face.
I still can’t believe that I’m here. In bed… with her. With my Anna. These past three days have been hell without her. Still, I was hurt, and I didn’t want her to see just how much wreckage she caused on my heart.
Then last night she came to me and told me she’d wanted to kiss me. Not my brother. Not because alcohol spurred her on. But because she wanted to. And if what happened afterward is how we settle all our disagreements from now on, then I’m the luckiest bastard to have ever lived.
However, that was last night. In the daylight, she might retreat into herself again, pushing me away. I can’t let that happen.
We took a major step forward last night, one that, in my mind, was long overdue. I can’t go back to how things were before. I can’t go back to her shutting away her feelings for me. I know they still exist. I know it deep in my fucking bones that she loves me.
She just needs to remember how good we are together. Remember how our souls spoke to each other.
I don’t care how much she tries to act like that love is dead. I know it still breathes inside of her. I just need to bring it to the surface somehow and make her realize that it was there all along.
She gave her heart to me once, and I refuse to give it back. She can’t hide anymore. I won’t let her. So, I’ve made a plan to guarantee just that.
My heart stutters when she begins to stir beside me, her eyelids fluttering as I brush my fingers through her hair.
“Good morning, sweetheart. Did you sleep well?”
“Yes,” she purrs, and damn it if the sound doesn’t awaken something in me.
Slowly, she opens her eyes, and instead of hate or fear, all I see is my future reflected back at me in her baby-blue gaze.
Unable to stop myself, I lower my lips to hers and press a soft kiss there.
Every part of me wants to deepen it, but I know I shouldn’t.
I have to take things slow with Anna. I can’t push too hard, too fast. Not if I want her to love me again.
I need to rebuild trust, and that means patience.
Lucky for her, when it comes to my wife, I have a bottomless well of patience.
Anna’s eyelids flutter again, her lips soft and swollen, and I swear I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.
No. That’s a lie. Last night, when she came all over my fingers, it was the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
“Hmm… what time is it?” she yawns.
“Almost ten.”
“Ten?” she mimics, surprised by the late hour. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept so late in my entire life. Are you sure it’s ten?”
“Quite sure,” I smile, caressing her cheek with my knuckles. “You needed the extra bit of sleep. You were exhausted when I brought you to bed last night.”
Anna’s cheeks flush crimson at the memory my words stirred, my cock suddenly and acutely aware of the way her lips part for breath. Even more so when her tongue swipes at her bottom lip.
“I… I should get up and get dressed for breakfast,” she stammers. “Your mother must be worried I haven’t come down yet.”
“In a minute, sweetheart,” I murmur, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer. “I want to talk to you for a bit first.”
“What about?” she asks, and I can hear the nerves in her voice.
I’m unsure if she’s nervous about what I want to say, or because my hard cock is pressed against her bare thigh. Fearing it’s the latter, I shift slightly so as not to overwhelm her. There will be plenty of time for that later.
“I feel like I’ve been a bad husband to you.
We’ve been married almost three weeks now, and I still haven’t taken you on a honeymoon.
” She says nothing, her expression guarded as she waits.
“I know it’s not much, but I was thinking maybe we could go up to the Hamptons.
It’s Fourth of July weekend in a couple of days, and I thought you might enjoy spending the holiday there. ”
“Don’t you have work?”
“I can spare a few days,” I lie.
In reality, the last thing I should be doing is whisking my wife away for an impromptu honeymoon. But after last night, there’s no way I’d be able to focus on anything else.
I need to salvage my marriage. The only way to do that is by reminding my wife why she fell in love with me in the first place, and I can’t do that if she feels like a prisoner in her own home.
She needs freedom. Fresh air. Sunlight on her skin.
None of that is possible if we stay in the city.
Not when her siblings are plotting against me.
I still haven’t found where Stella and Marcello are hiding.
But that’s not even the worst of it. Two days ago, I received intel that more men have entered my city, including her brother, Jude.
I suppose I should be grateful he came alone and didn’t bring his wife’s army with him.
But from what I’ve heard, that has more to do with the Bratva’s latest attack on the London Firm than any lack of desire to help him retrieve his sister from me.
I don’t tell Anna any of this, though. I will. Just not yet. I want the next few days to be about us, not the impending war looming at our doorstep. The war can wait. My wife can’t.
Anna still hasn’t said a word. She just watches me warily, and I know exactly why she’s hesitating to answer.
She doesn’t trust herself around me. The idea of us being alone together, twenty-four-seven, unsettles her.
Not because she doesn’t want to go, but because she knows it will be harder to resist this pull between us if she does.
Harder to deny her true feelings. But that’s exactly why we’re doing this.
I had been going about this all wrong. I thought if I kept my distance and gave her time, that sooner or later she would come to me.
Come to acknowledge our love. But in love, as is in war, the attack is always the best defense.
Last night I succeeded in bringing her walls down.
By the end of this trip, I intend to obliterate them.
“I think this is what we need,” I say quietly. “Some time alone. To talk. To get to know each other again. Don’t you think?”
She bites her lip, and I’m struck again by how breathtaking she is. How she can shift from innocent to commanding without even realizing it.
“So we’ll be alone? Just the two of us?”
“That’s the idea.”
“I… um—”
Before she can finish, I press another kiss to her lips, slow and deliberate, lingering until she melts into the bed beside me. By the time I pull back, her resistance has slipped through my fingers, leaving nothing but the quiet surrender I was waiting for.
“Okay,” she breathes, her eyelids half-mast. “Let me pack a few things. When do we leave?”
“Now.”