CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
"It is not only for you," Dante clarified quickly, though his thumbs came up to lightly stroke the sides of her waist, anchoring her to him. "Though you are certainly a massive part of it. It is for my own peace of mind as much as anything else."
"Your peace of mind," she echoed, her voice trembling slightly.
"I cannot function properly at the estate, Cassia," Dante confessed, his voice dropping into a low, raw register.
"I sit at my desk, I look at my ledgers, and I cannot focus on my work.
All I can think about is the fact that you are alone in the city.
Every time a siren wails, every time my phone rings, my chest tightens. "
"I can protect myself," Cassia argued instinctively, the lifelong habit of fierce independence rearing its head.
"I know you can," Dante reassured her instantly, his hands sliding up to cup her face, his long fingers tangling gently in the hair at the nape of her neck.
"I have no doubts about your ability to protect yourself.
If anything, Cassia, I trust your combat skills far more than my own, and I am endlessly grateful for that fact. But my logic doesn't matter."
He leaned his forehead against hers, his breath ghosting over her lips.
"The mere thought of anything happening to you leaves me paralyzed with fear," Dante whispered, the vulnerability in his tone devastating.
"You spend nearly your entire day at the hospital.
You only come to this apartment to sleep.
There is no reason for you to make that brutal commute, or sleep in a building without security, when we have more than enough space to offer you instead. "
Cassia stood still.
The hum of the refrigerator faded. The distant sounds of the city traffic outside her window vanished. Her mind, usually pragmatic, went blank.
She had never been treated this way before in her entire life.
Growing up in the brutal, shifting tides of the foster care system, Cassia had been a burden.
She had been a file in a cabinet, a temporary resident, a problem to be managed.
She had fought tooth and nail for her education, for her safety, for the very food on her plate.
No one had ever rearranged a dinner schedule for her sake, let alone uprooted an entire, historic family to make her life easier and safer.
She had never experienced anyone putting her comfort first. She had never been anyone's priority.
The sheer overwhelming magnitude of what he was doing—what he was offering—slammed into her chest with the force of a physical blow. She genuinely didn't know how to process it. Her chest tightened painfully, a massive, unfamiliar lump forming in her throat.
She didn't want to cry. She fought against the emotion rising in her with everything she had, her eyes burning, her jaw locking tight as she tried to force the vulnerability back down into the dark box where she kept it.
Dante didn't ask her what was wrong. He didn't demand that she speak. Watching her face carefully, feeling the sudden, rigid tension in her muscles, he understood what was happening without needing her to explain a single syllable.
Without a word, Dante slipped one arm behind her knees and the other around her back. He lifted her effortlessly off the kitchen floor.
Cassia let out a soft, startled gasp, her arms instinctively wrapping around his neck, but she didn't fight him. Dante carried her out of the kitchen and across the living room toward the large bay window that overlooked the glittering, amber lights of Rome.
He sat down on the wide, cushioned window seat, settling her securely sideways in his lap. He wrapped both arms around her, pulling her flush against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin.
He said nothing. He just held her.
And in the steady warmth of his embrace, the dam finally broke.
Cassia pressed her face into the soft fabric of his shirt, and she let the tears fall.
It wasn't a loud, dramatic sobbing; it was a release of thirty years of solitary tension.
She clung to his shirt, her shoulders trembling, surrendering the armor she had worn for a lifetime.
Dante just held her tighter, one hand rubbing slow, soothing circles into her back, needing nothing from her except her presence, offering nothing but his unwavering, solid anchor.
They sat there for a long time, the city lights painting faint, shifting shadows across the walls of the apartment.
When her breathing finally slowed, and the trembling in her shoulders subsided, Dante pressed a long, tender kiss to the crown of her head.
"Does it really seem so strange to you?" Dante asked gently, his voice a low, comforting rumble vibrating against her cheek. "That we would want to do this for you?"
Cassia sniffled quietly shifting back just enough to look at his face. Her pale blue eyes were rimmed with red, her eyelashes damp, stripped of all her usual prickly sarcasm.