Chapter 14
PIETRO
Ididn’t know what time it was when I opened my eyes, and for once I had absolutely no interest in finding out.
All I cared about was the woman asleep against me, warm and soft and impossibly real. Emily had shattered something open in me the night before, something I had spent years holding rigidly in place, and waking up with her in my arms felt almost unreal because of it.
When the pleasure she gave me stripped away my usual control, she had understood immediately—no pity, no hesitation, no false gentleness. Just determination, care, desire, and something more dangerous than all of it: love. Emily had made me feel no need to hide at all.
I tightened my hold on her and brushed my lips over one of her wild curls.
God, I loved her.
“What time is it?” she murmured sleepily against my chest.
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
I felt her smile against my skin and tightened my arms around her again.
I had no desire to move, no interest in getting out of that bed or returning to the rest of the world.
For the first time in my life, I understood exactly why my father had always looked faintly murderous whenever one of us interrupted his mornings with my mother, and why he used to tell me, with the solemnity usually reserved for blood oaths, that lazy mornings with the woman you loved were rare enough to be treated like treasure.
“…Olivero.”
I frowned, having missed the first part of whatever she said, but not especially enjoying hearing my friend and bodyguard’s name while she was naked in my bed and wrapped around me.
“Emily, sweetheart, I am by nature a calm man,” I said, “but I have to admit I’m not particularly fond of hearing another man’s name while I’m holding you like this.”
She kissed my chest and shook her head. “I just hope he was okay all night out there.”
I let out a low hum. “He wasn’t outside. He was almost certainly somewhere expensive, doing his best to destroy my credit card. For a night with you, it was worth every penny.”
“Trying to seduce me? It’s working.”
“I was under the impression I’d already succeeded,” I murmured. “Though if necessary, I’m happy to make further efforts.”
I let my hand trail down and squeezed her backside.
The soft moan that escaped her did absolutely nothing to help the fact that my body was already beginning to wake up again.
Not now, Pietro.
She rolled away from me with a sigh, and I couldn’t quite stop the low sound of frustration that left me at the loss of her warmth.
“I would love to stay in bed,” she said, turning back to look at me, “but I do have a seminar this afternoon, and unfortunately I’m expected to attend it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Can’t you call in sick?”
She tilted her head slightly. “I might have to. I’m not entirely convinced I can walk in a straight line.”
The grin that pulled at my mouth came too easily, too full of satisfaction to be remotely dignified.
But beneath it was something else. Some part of me had still been carrying the fear that I might not be enough for her.
Looking at her now, warm and rumpled and making that dry little joke, I felt that fear fall away.
“That sounds like a glowing review,” I said.
“Five stars. Highly recommended. Would absolutely come again.” She nodded solemnly, then stretched, arching her back in a way that made the sheet slip lower and revealed one flushed pink nipple.
My gaze caught there at once. I thought of how it had felt in my mouth the night before, and had to drag myself back from the edge of that memory before I did something deeply unhelpful.
If I let myself stay in that bed for even another minute, I was not going to let her leave it for the next several hours.
“All right,” I said, forcing my voice back into something usable. “At least let me feed you before you go. It’s the least I can do.”
She arched a brow as I got out of bed, my legs steadier than they had been the night before.
“You cook?” she asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
I glanced back at her as I reached for the sweatpants draped over the chair and pulled them on. “You sound doubtful.”
“I’m trying to imagine it,” she said. “You, preparing breakfast. It’s unsettling.”
I let out a soft snort.
I was halfway into my sweatpants before it fully registered that she was watching me in the clear wash of morning light, and even then the instinct to turn away never came.
She had already seen all of me—the scars, the tattoos, the body I had carved into usefulness through discipline, pain, and refusal—and none of it felt like something to brace against anymore.
For the first time in my life, being looked at did not feel like being measured. It felt like peace.
“When my mother was pregnant with Vicky, it wasn’t easy for her,” I said as I tugged the waistband into place. “It was a difficult pregnancy. Risky enough that she spent most of it on bed rest. My father and I had to learn quickly how to be useful.”
I shrugged, though the memory still felt heavier than I liked.
It was a dark time for all of us. My mother nearly died.
Victoria too. I saw my father come closer to madness then than at almost any other point in my life, and somehow the cooking we did for her became one of the few things that steadied the house.
It gave us something practical to do with our fear.
Over time, it stayed. Cooking became one of those quiet rituals that belonged to family, comfort, and home.
It was also during that time that I first understood the depth of my father’s love for my mother, and if I was honest, part of me had hoped for years that kind of love would never find me.
It had always seemed too consuming, too dangerous.
And yet, standing there watching the woman in my bed, I knew it had found me all the same.
For all the fear that came with it, I was grateful.
“Any preference?” I asked, my voice rougher than it ought to have been.
She smiled sleepily. “No. Surprise me.”
I nodded and looked at her one more time, already regretting the basic responsibilities of adult life, before forcing myself toward the kitchen.
By the time I was finishing the bacon, she appeared again, freshly showered and dressed, her hair still damp at the ends.
“It’s much later than I thought,” she said, stopping in the doorway. “I wouldn’t have time to shower at home before my seminar. I hope you don’t mind that I used your things.”
I looked up at her, then deliberately let my gaze drift over the clean, soft version of her that had come out of my bathroom smelling faintly of my soap.
“You smelling like me?” I said. “Hardly.”
She rolled her eyes. “Dork.”
“Ungrateful woman. I’m feeding you.”
“And yet somehow still managing to be unbearable.”
I set the plates down anyway and watched with satisfaction as she sat at my kitchen island like she belonged there. Which, for the purposes of my peace of mind, I had decided she did.
We ate in an easy quiet at first, the kind that no longer felt awkward or new. She told me about her seminar. I told her a heavily edited version of my week. She stole bacon off my plate. I let her. It felt dangerously close to domestic.
Which was probably why I noticed the moment her mood shifted. It was subtle. A pause too long before she reached for her coffee. A slight tightening in her shoulders.
“What is it?” I asked.
She glanced up. “Nothing.”
I gave her a look.
“That was unconvincing.”
She let out a small breath and looked back down at her plate. “I decided I’m going home for my sister’s surgery.”
I froze.
It wasn’t that I disapproved. How could I? Of course she should go. Of course she needed to be there. But the immediate thought that followed was not a noble one. It was simple, sharp, and selfish in a way I had no interest in examining too closely.
I did not like the idea of her being there without me.
Not because I wanted to insert myself into her family before she was ready, and certainly not because I imagined I had any right to.
But her ex was there. Fear had a geography for her, and that town was part of it.
Because if something in her past reached for her again, I wanted to be close enough to break its hand.
“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked.
Her eyes lifted to mine, and there was something unreadable in them before she said, “Would you like to?”
I set my fork down. “No,” I said. “I’d hate it. Small towns are exhausting, hospitals smell like surrender, and I’m generally opposed to long drives that don’t end in murder or decent coffee.”
She blinked.
Then I added, more quietly, “But if you’re asking whether I want to be there for you, yes. More than is probably reasonable.”
Something in her face softened.
“That’s a very dramatic answer.”
“You bring that out in me.”
Her mouth curved, but not quite enough to hide the nerves underneath it. “You wouldn’t even know what to do in my hometown.”
“I’d know how to stand beside you.”
She looked down at her coffee then, turning the mug slightly between her hands. “It would be strange,” she admitted. “You meeting them like that. My mother. Sophie. Everyone.”
“I don’t have to meet them. I can be there or in Seattle. It’s, what, thirty minutes from your home, right? I can wait but then if you need me in any way I’ll be close enough to come.”
“You make that sound very noble.”
“It’s not noble,” I said. “It’s strategy. You’ve made it abundantly clear that if I force your hand, you’ll become difficult.”
She smiled at that. “True.”
“Also,” I added, “I’m trying very hard to be the sort of man you don’t regret sleeping with.”
Her cheeks pinked at once. “That’s an annoyingly effective line.”
“Thank you.”
“I wasn’t complimenting you.”
“You did, though.”
She shook her head and took another sip of coffee, but the tension in her shoulders had eased.
I watched her for a second, then asked more gently, “What do you need from me?”
The question seemed to catch her off guard.
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
She was quiet for a moment.