Page 125 of Ruthless Vow
“I’m aware. I’m regretting it daily.”
“Liar.”
I am. We both know it.
His hand covers mine, pressing my palm harder against his heartbeat. Steady now. Strong. A week ago it was thready and weak, and Giada’s face was a mask I couldn’t read, and I sat in that chair by the window and bargained with God.
Let him live. Take anything else. Just let him live.
“Cassia.”
I blink.
His thumb traces the bones of my wrist. He can feel my pulse hammering there.
“Where did you go?”
“Nowhere.” I shake my head. “I’m here.”
“You were somewhere else.”
I could deflect. I’ve spent my life deflecting, making myself smaller, taking up less space. But he asked me to marry him again. Not a contract. A choice.
And choices mean honesty.
“I was remembering that first night. Sitting in the chair. Waiting.”
His brow furrows. “You should have slept.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Cassia.” His voice drops.
“Don’t.” I pull away, but he catches my wrist. Holds. “Don’t tell me I should have taken care of myself. Don’t tell me you would have been fine. You were twenty minutes from death, Dante. Giada told me. Twenty minutes.”
Silence stretches between us. The memory claws at my throat.
He doesn’t argue. Just tugs my wrist until I’m off-balance, until I’m falling against his chest, and then his arms are around me and he’s kissing me.
I make a sound. Protest or surrender, I’m not sure which.
He’s warm. Insistent. He tastes like the coffee Nonna Rosa brought up an hour ago, dark and bitter and familiar.
“Careful,” I manage against him. “Your ribs.”
“Are fine.”
“Giada said to take it easy.”
“Giada worries.” His teeth graze my lower lip. A spark shoots down my spine. “You worry. Everyone worries. I’m tired of being handled like glass.”
He’s not glass. The man who runs an empire, who commands without raising his voice, who watched his father die and built walls so high I thought I’d never scale them. He’s not fragile.
I’ve been the fragile one. Afraid to push. Afraid to reach for more. Afraid that if I take too much, I’ll hurt him.
But he’s tracing the divots of my spine through the thin cotton of my nightshirt, and I’m tired too. Tired of being careful. Tired of holding back.
A week without him touching me like this. A week of sleeping tangled together but never crossing the line.
