Chapter 10 Gio
GIO
Lucky clover-green eyes smile at me, and my heart skips a beat as the sun shines through when her lips part to join the warm greeting.
Standing in front of a flower cart, she’s as colorful as the blossoms she was bending over just moments before.
And now she’s looking at me like I’ve just said the funniest thing she’s heard all day.
“Not a romantic, then, I would take it,” she teases, her perfectly shaped eyebrow quirking to meet the dark hairline of her chic pixie cut.
“I wouldn’t go that far… I’m just saying, if you know you’ll need flowers for your apology, you probably knew you shouldn’t have been doing what you’re apologizing for in the first place…”
Those eyes flash with silent intelligence—and what I think might just be approval.
“I’m Stephanie,” the petite pixie of a jaw-dropper says, extending her delicate fingers to me.
As I glance down to take it, I note the layer of dirt beneath her natural yet feminine nails.
“Giovanni Chiaroscuro.” The name rolls off my tongue with practiced ease, and Stephanie’s lips twitch with amusement.
“You say it like that name is supposed to mean something to me.”
But all I can think about is the electrical current that passes between our palms. Like two magnets colliding… I instantly know I’m right where I belong…
My fingers still tingle as the scene fades into oblivion, my mind rising from the fog of sleep.
I curl my hand into a fist, clinging to the sensation, and I can almost imagine her hand in mine, the dry warmth of her palm, worn soft by the dirt she constantly works in.
Stephanie filled me with a desire to live like nothing else could.
And the day she died—the day I thought she died—it nearly killed me.
I don’t want to open my eyes, to come back to the land of the living, because when I remember the day I first met Stephanie, for the briefest of moments, all the aching sadness, all the agonizing loss that plagues my every breath evaporates.
It’s a moment that should make me happy.
But the crushing reality that follows never ceases to suffocate me.
Only today, it’s different.
Because it only takes an instant to recall that Stephanie’s alive—and not just that.
She’s truly back in my life.
Images of her smile across the dinner table last night come flooding back to me.
The sound of her laughter.
Her full hip brushing against my shoulder.
The whisper of her fingers as they met mine beneath the lip of the sauce pan.
If ever I could fall prey to an addiction, Stephanie would be mine.
This feels like it did back then, the day I met her, this thrill of finding a woman I’m so intensely attracted to, I couldn’t stay away if I wanted.
She was just a normal woman, not some perfect bride who’d been brought up in our world of misogyny and violence and offered up to me through a contract.
She was a woman I would have to win over.
She’d never even heard of my family name—a rarity in Chicago.
And making her mine was the single greatest accomplishment of my life.
Releasing a sigh, I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling of my bedroom.
After eight years, it feels almost sacrilegious not to mourn her.
But now that she’s back from the dead, I feel as though something inside me has been resurrected as well.
I don’t quite know what to think of what’s happening between us. This game she’s playing…
It’s entirely illogical.
And yet, when I had the opportunity to clear the air, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
If she doesn’t have a husband, if she’s not trying to stop me from coming back into her life, then why all the pretense?
The question hovered on the tip of my tongue last night as we did the dishes.
It begged to be vocalized.
But I froze up when the opportunity arose.
The truth is, I’m terrified that if I ask, I’ll snuff out what potential we might have.
For whatever reason, Stephanie wants to be another person.
She wants the world to know her as Jane.
Maybe she’s allowing me to stay as long as I’m willing to go with it.
Maybe she considers it a sign that I’m ready to give up my family.
Her question about what I do for a living did feel very pointed.
And yet, she continued the charade even after I all but told her I’m still involved in the same corrupt lifestyle.
Hell, I practically confessed to becoming the new Don.
Could it be that she truly doesn’t recognize me? Have I really changed that much over these past eight years?
Maybe, but if the roles were reversed, I’m certain I could never forget her, and it breaks my heart to think she could have so completely moved on from me.
Pressing the heels of my palms against my eyelids, I massage the throbbing headache forming behind my eyes until I see stars.
I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what to make of her.
All I know is that if I could earn back the woman I fell in love with, I would do anything to make it happen.
Like a dam breaking in my mind, memories of our past together flood back to me, images flashing before my eyes, reminding me of just how desperately I wanted her—needed her—in my life.
I fell hard and fast, despite my father’s objections.
He wanted me to marry a bride of his choosing—someone who would strengthen the family ties.
But the day I met Stephanie, I knew she was the only one for me.
It was the most romantic time of my life—even if Stephanie was right and I had been skeptical of love before I met her.
But she was a breath of fresh air in my stifling world, all creativity and ambition when I’d only ever known structure and discipline.
Even then, I loved her passion for flowers and making things grow.
I could watch her gardening for hours, the devotion and energy she poured into her pants. She captivated me, body and soul.
With vivid clarity, I recall how much she loved going to the botanical gardens—and damn if I didn’t love taking her there.
My already-rigid cock—still swollen from my dream of her—throbs when I think about the first time we went together.
“You’ve really never seen the botanic gardens?” she pressed, her fingers twining with mine as she practically skipped through the front doors.
She was wearing one of those colorful summer dresses she loved so much—with an open back and halter-top strap that tied at the nape of her neck.
The flattering sweetheart neckline and the way it hugged her ribcage before flaring out at the hips drove me wild, and every time she twirled with enthusiasm, the skirt swirled around her knees, giving me a tantalizing peek of her toned thighs.
“You think guys like me have time to stroll through public gardens regularly?” I teased, entirely too full of myself and brazenly cocky at the time.
Stephanie laughed, the melodic sound zinging through my body. “I promise there’s more to it than that.” The glance she cast me over her bare shoulder made my pulse race.
God, but I would follow her anywhere when she looked at me that way.
It was almost seductive—except Stephanie always possessed a shy streak.
She knew just how to tempt me but never made the first move. Not that I ever needed urging.
During our time together, I fucked her in the closets, bathrooms, and dark hallways of nearly every venue in town.
I laid claim to her body in back alleys, on forest beds, and against all varieties of public property every chance I got.
I couldn’t keep my hands off her, and that was just the way she liked it.
But on this day, our first trip to Chicago’s botanic gardens, it was the first.
We talked for hours, strolling through the gardens I’d never spared a second thought for before I met her.
She taught me things about plants I never would have dreamed to ask.
Then, in a shady corner of the greenhouse for tropical plants, she turned to me, her fingers curling around the collar of my dress shirt.
“I want you, Gio,” she breathed, her green eyes looking up at me through those impossibly thick, dark lashes.
The thrill of those three beautiful words rippled through me like an electric current, and when I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close, she melted against me.
Our lips met with a reckless passion.
I can still recall the way she tasted—like sweet honey and spearmint.
An addictive combination.
“You want me to… what?” I teased in a soft growl, my cock throbbing as I let my hands roam down the curves of her body.
I’d been thinking about all the naughty things I wanted to do to her since the moment we first met.
But with Stephanie, I never wanted to risk pushing her too far. I didn’t want to take without asking and break the trust she had given me so willingly.
I wanted to earn her consent.
To know without a doubt that she wasn’t giving in to pressure.
I wanted to know that when I buried my cock inside her for the first time, it would be because she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
But Christ, waiting for that day was a fresh kind of torture.
Don’t get me wrong. I toyed with that line plenty, teasing her with pleasure to coax her toward the day she would let me all the way in. And this day was no different.
I bunched the fabric of her skirt in my hands, drawing it slowly upward, anticipating the scolding I would get when I took it too far.
But when my fingers found the hem of her dress, Stephanie’s lips just curled against mine, her smile coy and inviting.
“You want me to touch you right here? Where anyone could find us?” I teased, sliding my fingertips beneath the layers of fabric and tracing a provocative line up the inside of her thigh.
Air hissed between my teeth when I reached her apex—and felt the gloriously bare, silky skin of her folds.
“Why, Miss Winters,” I breathed against her lips, my cock rock-hard and pulsing with the need to be inside her. “I do believe you’ve misplaced your underwear.”
Stephanie nipped playfully at my lower lip, biting down just hard enough to make me groan.
Then she leaned back, her fingernails tracing soft circles at the nape of my neck as she looked up at me shyly.
“I know exactly where they are,” she murmured, her teeth sinking into her full lower lip. “I want you, Giovanni Chiaroscuro. Here. Now. And not even my panties are stopping you—”
I cut her words short as I brought my mouth crushing down against hers, unable to hold back a second longer.
She arched into me, her hands clinging to the back of my neck, keeping our lips sealed as I made quick work of opening my belt and pants.
Then I scooped her up, wrapping her thighs around my hips as I stepped forward to press her back against the vine-covered trellis enclosing us.
“You never cease to amaze me,” I rasped as I guided my swollen tip to her slick entrance.
The thought of claiming her here, in her sacred place of refuge—not to mention in the middle of a public garden, where anyone could stumble upon us—brought every nerve in my body to life.
“Don’t hold back,” she begged, her breaths harsh and ragged against my skin.
And when I thrust inside her to the hilt, she buried her face against my neck to muffle the sound.
I’d never felt anything more euphoric than the thrill of making our bodies one—no barrier between us.
Just her hot, wet center welcoming me home.