Epilogue
GINA
“Another cocktail, madam?”
I open one eye. The server stands over me against the St. Barts sky.
“Why not?” I say.
Beside me, Dante’s hand is folded over mine. His skin is getting darker by the hour, and this is the most romantic time I have ever spent with him.
Silvio is dead. The families have pledged. The man lying next to me is as close to relaxed as Dante Ricci gets, which isn’t saying much. But here in the sun, it’s enough.
There are things I haven’t asked yet.
Things I’ve been smart enough, or scared enough, not to push.
But we’re two drinks in and a thousand miles from New York. So I decide I’m asking them now.
I turn to my side.
“Dante?”
“Mmmm?”
“Do you love me?”
He opens his eyes and looks at me. Then at the fresh drink in my hand.
“Why would I buy you twenty-dollar martinis if I didn’t?”
I have to laugh at that. “I’m serious,” I tell him.
“So am I.”
“All right, let’s play a game of Truth or Dare. I’ll go first.”
He says nothing, which with Dante means go ahead.
“I fell in love with you when I was fourteen. We were together at that harvest party in Sicily. You were there with Mary. Was it love at first sight for you too?”
“Gina, why would I notice a kid? Besides, assuming this Harlequin fantasy of yours is true, what exactly did I do to catch your attention?”
I laugh. “How does a mob boss like you even know what a Harlequin romance is?”
“I have my ways.”
“You wore a white shirt,” I say. “And your hair was long and black. All the boys I knew were surfer boys. Blond and silly. Then there was you.”
“Ah, you imagined me in my dark prince persona,” he says, straight-faced. “Good to know.”
“I was fourteen and pumping hormones,” I tell him. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Why not? If the mafia gig doesn’t pan out, at least I know I can make a living impressing girls.”
“All right, then. If not then, when did you fall in love with me?”
“It’s hard to say.”
“Try. When?”
He is quiet for a moment. “You were eating Cap’n Crunch, reading the back of the box. Early on, maybe our first week together.”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s so romantic about that?”
“You have an odd idea about romance,” he says, taking my hand and pressing each finger in turn.
“Romance isn’t a Hallmark card. It’s falling in love with the little things that make the person you love, the person you love. It’s everything you do, Gina. I could watch you all day.”
I grab a lounge pillow and hit him with it. He catches it, laughing. Really laughing.
“Shall we go to our room?” he says, his voice dropping.
“Yes,” I say. “But first, I need to ask about Mary.”
He sets the pillow down and looks at me.
My body tenses as I prepare for one of his icy stares or stormy moods.
“Ask,” he finally says.
“Everyone said you’d never remarry. You kept her room like a shrine. For the longest time, I wondered if you even noticed I was your wife.” I hold his gaze. “Did you love her?”
“No,” he says.
Just that.
“Then why—”
“Mary was an arrangement. Like ours. At the start, I respected her. I was faithful to her.” He pauses. “That’s not love.”
“The room,” I say. “Explain why you kept her room.”
He looks at me steadily. “In my world, a man who clears out his dead wife’s belongings too quickly is a man who either killed her or never respected her. Both are dangerous.” He pauses. “It was a calculation.”
I let that sit for a moment. “So it was never a shrine.”
“It was strategy,” he says. “Nothing more.”
I believe him. I believe him because this explanation is so utterly Dante that nothing else could be true.
“And her death,” I say. “The tabloids—”
“She was drunk. She fell. The coroner was right.” His voice is flat and final. “Tabloids sell papers.”
One more thing. The thing underneath all of it. “Why did you throw out all her things and have the room painted blue before this trip?”
He looks at me with a little smile.
“We might have need of that room soon. Biscotti’s been telling me he’s eager for a baby brother. Shall we go upstairs?” he says again.
I smile and hold out my hand.
“Aren’t you going to take off your clothes too?” I ask, reaching for the buttons on his shirt.
“No questions,” he says, a mockery of his usual stern tone.
Dante is the boss.
He pins my arms above my head as he kisses me intensely.
He breaks the kiss every few seconds to trace his warm lips along the curve of my ear. He gives it a gentle nibble that sends my pulse racing before returning to my mouth with renewed hunger.
I return his delicious kisses, my lips parting to welcome the warm slide of his tongue against mine.
His hands, usually so demanding and quick, now move over my body with deliberate leisure. His rough fingertips trace the curve where my waist dips. His palms smooth over the soft swell of my hips.
Dante explores me slowly, as if committing every inch of me to memory. He lingers at the sensitive hollow beneath my ribs and the tender place where my neck meets my shoulder.
When his thumb grazes the underside of my breast, I arch into his touch, wanting more.
Dante’s breath catches audibly as he takes in the sight of me, his touch reverent in a way I’ve never felt from him before.
Tonight, I barely recognize Dante as my husband.
Of course, Dante always made sure I was satisfied.
But for me, pleasure was never the point.
What I always wanted from him was something deeper.
Something that belonged only to us.
Tonight it feels as if he finally understands.
I keep waiting for him to snap back into his usual commanding self. But he just keeps touching me with this gentleness I didn’t know he possessed.
“I want to put a baby in you,” he says, lightly tracing the taut skin of my flat stomach with his forefinger.
A baby.
The word settles between us, heavy with meaning.
We had never talked about it. I knew it was expected, given Dante’s position. But he had never spoken the words aloud.
I open my mouth to respond, but Dante presses his lips to mine before I can say a word.
That’s our dance.
Dante’s taut body presses against mine, his erection straining against the thin fabric of his shorts.
I feel his breathing grow heavier against my neck.
His hands move to the fly of his shorts, tugging it open with impatient fingers. The quiet slide of the zipper seems unnaturally loud in the room.
A rustle of fabric follows. And then the unmistakable heat of his bare erection presses against my skin.
He shifts slightly, positioning himself. Even though weeks have passed since he first claimed me, a familiar tension still ripples through my body.
“Relax,” he murmurs.
His large hand moves to the nape of my neck, his fingers working slow circles into the tight muscles there.
The gentle motion sends warmth spreading through me, easing the last of my tension.
When he finally enters me, I instinctively move toward him, meeting him halfway.
His fingers slide into my hair, tightening just enough to make my scalp tingle.
“You are mine,” Dante growls against my ear, his hips moving with slow, deliberate strength.
His voice sounds different tonight. Deeper, rougher.
“You are mine alone. No other man will ever know you like this.”
Each word lands with quiet certainty.
“Mine,” he whispers again.
The possessiveness in his voice should shock me.
Instead, it sends a thrilling heat through my body.
To have this man, this man above all others desire me with such fierce certainty, sets me on fire.
Our movements find their rhythm together.
His grow more focused, more powerful.
“Mine,” he growls again against my ear.
Then his body goes rigid as he releases inside me, warmth spreading deep through my belly.
The sensation sends me tumbling into my own climax, our bodies moving together as the wave crashes over us.
For a moment neither of us moves.
Then we collapse onto the mattress together, spent.
Dante’s weight shifts as he pulls me against his chest.
His arms wrap around me, strong and possessive, as my breathing slowly begins to steady.
I snuggle deeper into him, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest against my back.
My body still tingles everywhere he touched me.
Something feels different this time.
A warm glow spreads low in my belly, soft and unfamiliar.
I press my hand against my stomach, imagining his seed taking root inside me.
Becoming our baby.
My heart trembles at the thought.
Women always talk about “just knowing” when it happens.
I used to think that was impossible.
But lying here in Dante’s arms, wrapped in his warmth, the feeling seems undeniable.
As if my body already understands what my mind is only beginning to grasp.
I am his completely.
And now a part of Dante Ricci lives inside me.
***