Chapter 40 #2
He closes the wallet slowly. “Vincenzo Dragovich lives. That is the identity Kieran built for me. That is the life I bought with everything I left behind. I’m not the King of the Five Families anymore.
I’m not Arabella’s husband. I’m not bound to Rome, the council, or any throne that needs me empty to function. ”
His eyes hold mine.
“I’m yours,” he says. “Legally, privately, practically, dangerously, completely. I have nothing, but I am yours.”
My heart does not know what to do. It’s still screaming from the month in the grave. It is still on the floor of my bedroom at Saint Helena with Tatiana’s arms around me. It is still in the car, the line dead. It is still in the main hall, handing over the family.
But it is here now, looking at a man who gave up an empire and took my name because he wanted to live with me more than he wanted to rule without me.
I don’t know what to think. I don’t know how to hold rage and relief this large in the same body without one killing the other.
“You took my name,” I say.
Vincenzo’s mouth trembles. “Yes.”
“You let me mourn you for a month.”
“Yes.”
“You gave up your empire.”
“Yes.”
“You came here expecting what?” I ask, voice raw. “That I’d see your pretty face and fall on your cock out of gratitude? Can you give me the month back that I grieved?”
A flicker of pained humor crosses his face and dies quickly. “No. I expected you to hate me.”
“I do,” I snap without thinking.
The words hit both of us. I breathe hard through the truth of them because it is not the whole truth, but it is real enough to stand in the sand between us.
I hate him right now. I hate him for the month. I hate him for being alive and letting me believe he wasn’t. I hate him for making my grief useful to his escape. I hate him for standing here with my name in his pocket and tears on his face and making it impossible for the hate to stay clean.
Vincenzo nods once. “I know.”
“Stop saying that,” I say, voice breaking again. “Stop fucking saying that.”
He takes one more step, but I don’t move back.
His hand lifts slowly, giving me every chance to stop him. I should. I should tell him not to touch me. I should keep the anger between us because it is the only thing protecting me from the relief that will break what’s left.
But I don’t stop him.
His fingers touch my cheek.
Warm.
Alive.
Real.
The second his palm settles against my face, something inside me goes silent in the most terrifying way.
I’m stunned by the contact. His thumb brushes under my eye, catching tears I do not have the strength to deny anymore. The gesture is careful enough to be an apology before he says it.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice shaking.
“I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I broke your heart to save my life and called it necessary because it was easier than admitting I was choosing a cruelty I knew too well.
I’m sorry you had to hold that ring and think it was proof I was gone.
I’m sorry for every night you spent alone on this island because I needed the world to believe your grief. ”
His hand remains on my face. “I came back,” Vincenzo whispers. “Late. Wrong. Unforgivable, maybe. But I came back to you.”
The ring is still in my fist, but his name is on my life now.
Vincenzo Dragovich.
My anger is huge, but my relief is worse.
For a long moment, I do nothing. I stand there at sunset on the beach of the island I bought for him, bourbon spilled in the sand, the ring in my hand, his palm on my cheek, and I let the impossible fact of him press against every dead place in me.
Then I grab his wrist.
His breath catches, but he does not pull away. I hold him there, palm still against my cheek. I hate him and I love him, and if he takes his hand away before I’m ready, I might fall apart in a way neither of us will survive.
“You don’t get forgiveness tonight,” I say.
His eyes fill again. “I know.”
My grip tightens. “You don’t get to touch me and make this better. You don’t get to ever fucking do this to me again.”
“I won’t,” he says. “Never again.”
I laugh once, broken and vicious. “You have no idea how badly I want to believe you.”
“I’ll spend the rest of my life making you believe me,” Vincenzo says.
The rest of my life—the line lands too hard.
Because he has one.
He has a life.
He is alive.
My knees nearly give.
Vincenzo sees it and steps in, but I catch him first, both hands fisting in the front of his shirt.
For one second, I just hold the fabric, breathing like I’ve been running for a month and only just reached air.
He stands completely still under my grip, letting me decide whether the next movement is violence or surrender.
I don’t know which one it is when I drag him into me.
The embrace is brutal. It is not tender at first; it is impact. Punishment and proof. My arms close around him so hard he grunts, and the sound sends panic through me until I loosen by a fraction and then tighten again because I can’t help it.
He is warm against me. Thin. Shaking. Alive. His heart beats against my chest, fast and real and impossible, and the moment I feel it, the sob that rips out of me has no dignity left at all.
Vincenzo’s arms come around me at once. “I’m sorry,” he says into my shoulder, over and over now, voice breaking fully. “I’m sorry, Nikolaj. I’m so sorry.”
I bury my face in his neck and shake apart. Not the same way as before. Not the grief on the floor at Saint Helena. This is something worse and better, rage and relief tearing through the same door at once.
I’m crying because he’s alive. I’m crying because he let me think he wasn’t. I’m crying because his name is Dragovich now, and because for one month I said goodnight to a ring like it could answer me.
Vincenzo’s hand returns to my cheek, softer now, and I let it stay.
“You’re really here,” I say, and the words are barely a sound. “You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
“You’re mine.”
His eyes close like the word is a mercy he doesn’t deserve. “Yes,” Vincenzo whispers. “I’m yours.”
I look at the sea behind him, then the villa above the beach, glowing warm in the last of the sunset.
The house that served as a mausoleum for a week.
The island that was supposed to be ours but became mine alone.
The place where I came to disappear because I thought that was the closest thing to being with him I had left.
I press the ring into his palm and close his fingers around it with my own. “Put it back on,” I say.
Vincenzo looks at me, tears sliding down his face. “Nikolaj.”
“Not because I forgive you,” I say, voice ruined. “Because you were never allowed to die wearing it and leave me with a ghost.”
He looks down at the ring in his hand, then back at me. “I love you,” he says.
I close my eyes because that still hurts.
“I love you too,” I say, and the words come out like a wound reopening. “And right now, I fucking hate you for making that matter this much.”
Vincenzo nods, crying openly now. “I know. I hear you, my love, and I am so sorry.”
I don’t tell him to stop saying it. I just stand there with his hand trapped between mine, the ring waiting to return to the living, and the sea moving around Isle Lucia like it always knew the dead were liars if they loved hard enough to come home.