Chapter 28
PIETRO
Iwas probably what could only be described as delusional.
As in, I knew perfectly well that the chances of Emily actually showing up tonight were somewhere between slim and nonexistent, and yet I had still filled the fridge with every delicacy I could think of, chilled a bottle of champagne, and prepared the apartment like a man expecting either reconciliation or a highly personal humiliation.
Just in case.
I had also made Olivero pack an overnight bag and left my credit card on top of it, again just in case.
He had objected, loudly and with feeling, claiming he had no intention of abandoning my “sorry ass”—his words, not mine—in the event that Emily failed to appear and I dissolved into pathetic heartbreak.
Now he was lingering in the living room with entirely too much confidence while I sat on the sofa tapping my fingers against the coffee table like an idiot.
“She’ll come,” he said.
I looked up. “Oh yes? Are you a psychic too?”
“Nah.” He leaned back against the counter with all the irritating ease of a man not currently waiting for the most important woman in his life to decide whether he deserved another chance.
“I just think life has no interest in making me deal with a whiny, heartbroken sotto capo. It’s already given me enough hardship. ”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Right. It’s all about you.”
“Always,” he said. “I’m glad you’re finally learning.”
My heart was in my throat the second the knock came.
For one suspended moment I didn’t move, because while the door stayed closed I still got to believe it was her. The doorman had instructions to send her straight up if she came, no questions asked, and in those few unbearable seconds before certainty arrived, hope still had room to breathe.
“Open the damn door, Pietro,” Olivero said from behind me. “She is not Schr?dinger’s cat.”
I turned to glare at him. “Are you comparing my love life to a potentially dead cat?”
He shrugged. “If the shoe fits.”
“I hate you so much.”
“Mm. Go open the door before you pass out.”
I hated that his ridiculousness was what finally got me moving, but it did.
I opened it.
And there she was.
Not just magnificent, but with the kind of quiet effort that made my chest painful. She had chosen that dress with intention. She had clearly attempted to tame her hair and only partly succeeded, which made her even more beautiful.
“You came.”
The words left me before I could stop them, rougher than I intended.
She stepped inside slowly, looking at me with an expression I still did not know how to survive.
“I wasn’t sure I would.”
Then she looked past me.
“Hi, Olivero.”
“Bye, Olivero,” I said immediately, not taking my eyes off her for even a second. My entire world was standing in my doorway. I had no intention of looking anywhere else.
“Thank heaven,” he muttered, already grabbing the overnight bag and my card. “I am removing myself from this.” He pointed vaguely between us. “Good luck with…whatever this is.”
I barely heard him leave.
Emily had walked farther into the apartment by then, so I closed the door softly behind her, trying not to move too fast, trying not to crowd her, trying not to look like a man one breath away from falling to his knees.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then she looked at me and said, “Your mother came.”
“I know.”
“It was a cheap shot.”
I shook my head. “No. It was perspective.”
Her mouth twitched despite herself. “Well, speaking of perspective, I think I may have flashed her.”
I shrugged, because this felt like exactly the kind of thing my mother would survive with remarkable resilience. “She’s seen worse.”
That finally made her exhale something dangerously close to a laugh.
I held on to the sound like a starving man offered bread.
“You came,” I said again, quieter, because I was not above repeating myself when emotional.
She looked away first. “We need to talk.”
I nodded. Not exactly the reconciliation I had imagined, but she was here, and that alone was enough to keep hope alive.
“Do you want a drink? Something to eat?”
She shook her head and sat down carefully on the leather sofa. “Maybe later.”
I sat opposite her, then immediately hated the distance and moved to the chair closer to her instead. Enough to feel real, not enough to presume.
She looked at her hands before lifting her eyes to mine.
“I don’t want you to stop being sotto capo.”
I went completely still.
She kept going before I could interrupt.
“This is the Pietro I fell in love with. Not the censored version. Not the hypothetical Boston-safe edition. You.” Her voice was steady, but I could hear the effort under it.
“I understand it will be difficult. I understand there will be hard days. I understand there are things attached to loving you that I may never fully make peace with. But that’s not what I’m asking from you. ”
My throat had gone dry.
“What are you asking?”
Her gaze didn’t waver.
“That if I do this, if I choose you again, I need to know that I am at the center of your life. Not your image of me. Not what you think is best for me. Me. That when things go wrong, you do not shut me out and become noble on my behalf. That we are in it together.”
“Always,” I said at once.
She lifted one hand. “Don’t commit too fast.”
I closed my mouth.
That was fair.
She let the silence settle before continuing. “I also know now that some of my rules were…” Her mouth tilted faintly. “Ambitious. Maybe unrealistic.”
“I wanted to follow them for you. Truly.”
“I know,” she said, and something about the softness of that hurt more than anger would have. “But I don’t need perfection, Pietro. I need honesty. I need effort. I need room to be part of the reality, not just the dream.”
I leaned forward, my forearms braced on my knees, wanting to give her all of my attention in a way that looked as serious as I felt.
“Then let me be honest now.”
She nodded once.
“I cannot promise you a life without danger,” I said.
“I cannot promise that my world will never reach for you again or that I will always know the right move. I can promise you that I will never again take your choice away in the name of loving you. I can promise that I will tell you the truth, even when it is ugly, even when it humiliates me, even when it makes me look weaker than I want to.” I swallowed.
“And I can promise that I will try with everything I have in me to be the man you deserve, even when I fail at it first.”
She was listening so intently that it made me feel flayed open.
“I know you have your PhD to finish,” I continued.
“I know you want a job in your field, and I would never stop you from having one. I won’t clip your wings to make loving me easier.
If this has to be long distance for a while, then it will be long distance.
If we have to build it in stages, then we’ll build it in stages.
If it takes adjustment, then we adjust. But whatever shape it takes, I’ll meet you there. ”
Her expression changed then, not into softness exactly, but into something deeper. More vulnerable.
“I will finish my PhD,” she said quietly. “But I’ll also come with you.”
The words hit me so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“You would?”
“Yes.” She looked almost annoyed by the fact that she had to explain what now felt obvious to her.
“I can do more remotely than I first thought. I can grade online, I can do the seminars online, I can make the adjustments necessary. It won’t always be simple, but I can make it work.
” Her eyes held mine. “As long as I’m part of the team. ”
“You are the team,” I said, too fast, too raw, too true to stop. “There is no version of any of this that works for me without you in it.”
Her breath caught.
So did mine.
I moved then, slowly enough to let her stop me, and came to sit beside her. She didn’t move away.
She turned her face toward me, and there were tears in her eyes, though none had fallen.
“That would be a good start,” she whispered.
I nodded, because suddenly speaking felt dangerous.
She looked down, then back up again. “I’m still scared.”
“So am I.”
That made her laugh softly.
“Good,” she said. “I’d be worried if you weren’t.”
I reached for her hand then, slowly, and when she let me take it, part of me came back to life.
“I am going to make mistakes again,” I said. “Not this one. But others, because I remain human despite my better efforts.”
“That’s very upsetting news.”
“I know.” I brushed my thumb across her knuckles.
“But if I do, I want you to tell me. I want you to drag me back into the room and force me to face it. I want all of it, Emily. The love, the arguments, the compromises, the ugly days, the good ones, the years it takes to get fluent in each other. I want the whole life.”
Her mouth trembled then, just enough to undo me.
“That’s dangerously romantic for a mafia heir.”
I leaned closer. “I haven’t even started.”
That finally made her smile.
A real one.
It hit me harder than any bullet ever could.
“I love you,” she said, quiet and serious and devastating.
I closed my eyes for half a beat.
“I love you,” I said back, “in ways that should concern us both.”
She shook her head, but the smile stayed.
And because I could see the exact moment where words had done all they could, I lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, then to her wrist, right over the bracelet.
“This time,” I said against her skin, “if there is ever a choice to be made, it will be ours.”
She looked at me for a long second, and when she finally answered, her voice was soft enough that I felt it more than heard it.
“Ours.”
I kissed her first.
Not carefully, not with the caution that had marked so much of the evening, but with the kind of quiet certainty that came only after a man had been given back something he had no business losing in the first place.
One hand came up to cradle her face, the other settled at her waist, and when she leaned into me with a soft, answering sound against my mouth, something in my chest loosened so completely it almost hurt.