Chapter Forty-Two A Toast to Whats Ahead
They welcomed the new year alone, by choice, on the terrace where they'd first danced at their wedding reception, a bottle of champagne neither of them finished and a blanket wrapped around both their shoulders against the winter chill.
"What do you want, for this year?" Elena asked, watching fireworks bloom distantly over the city skyline, her head resting against his shoulder.
Dante considered the question with unusual seriousness, his arm tightening around her.
"Less of my father in me," he said finally.
"More of this. More ordinary evenings that don't require armed men at a discreet distance.
More time in the bookshop you haven't opened yet, watching you become the version of yourself you were always meant to be.
" He pressed a kiss to her hair. "What do you want? "
"For Salvatore's shadow to finally, fully be gone.
For my father to keep becoming the man he's trying to be.
For us—" she hesitated, feeling suddenly, uncharacteristically shy about a hope she hadn't yet said aloud, "—for us to keep growing into whatever this becomes.
A family, maybe. Someday, when we're ready. "
Something warm and unguarded lit behind Dante's eyes. "You want children?"
"I didn't think I was allowed to want that, for a long time.
Not in this world, with everything it carries.
" She turned to face him fully, the fireworks casting brief, colorful light across both their faces.
"But watching you this year — watching you become exactly the kind of man I'd trust with something that precious — I think I do want it. When the time is right."
"I would give you anything you wanted," Dante murmured, "but that, especially.
A child who grows up knowing love instead of fear, the way I never got to.
" His forehead dropped to hers, both of them quiet for a long moment beneath the fading fireworks.
"I don't know what this next year holds, Elena.
I've learned enough, this past one, to stop pretending I can control everything.
But I know I want to spend it exactly like this — discovering, one ordinary evening at a time, everything we still have left to become together. "
She kissed him as the last of the fireworks faded into smoke and quiet, the whole of the coming year stretched ahead of them, uncertain and unwritten and, for the first time in either of their lives, something to look forward to rather than merely survive.