Page 148 of Twisted Temptation

Dante doesn't look up from his wine. "You knew what you were signing up for."

"I didn't sign up. I was born into it."

"Worse," Dante says. "No exit clause."

Dante smiles, and something cracks open in my chest. Those dimples. That smile. My man.

His hand moves higher and comes to rest on my round belly where his son is growing.

Thirty-eight weeks ago, Dante fucked me for the first time against the wall of his library and put his baby inside me.

If I thought he was protective of me before I was pregnant, now he is positively feral.

I take a sip of water and tune back in.

"— and then one of his men turns up at two in the morning," Tommy is saying, leaning back in his chair, "and I'm standing in Grazalov's kitchen stark naked eating some weird dish his cook made."

"Why were you naked?" my dad asks.

"Because who needs clothes at two a.m.?"

My dad nods slowly. "Fair enough."

I love that my dad is here. I love that he calls Dante son now. I love that he taught John Marco how to play chess, lost on purpose, and thought nobody noticed. I love that he treats Tommy like he’s known him his whole life. I love that he eats Charles' cooking and tells him it's the best meal he's ever had, every single time, and Charles pretends to be unmoved but always gives him extra.

And I love every loud, messy, dangerous, bread-throwing piece of it.

Dante's hand finds my knee under the table.

I look at him. He's not looking at me. He's watching Tommy tell the rest of the story, and his face is calm.

But his thumb is moving in slow circles on the inside of my knee.

I put my hand over his and squeeze, and he squeezes back.

God, I love this man.

This hard, ruthless beast of a man.

He's not tame. He'll never be tame. He’s done things that would keep most people awake for the rest of their lives, yet he sleeps just fine. That's who he is. I knew it the first time I saw him, and I know it now.

But with me he's soft in all the places that matter.

While Dante talks with my father, and John Marco and Tommy engage in more cousin rivalry, I look around the table at the faces that have come to mean so much to me and feel the warmth spread through me.

This is what you don’t see in the fairy tale.

The part long after the curse breaks, when the castle fills back up with laughter and love and a new family you couldn’t imagine living without.

Charles brings more wine to the table.

“Charles, sit down and have a glass of wine with us,” I say.

“I’m working, Mrs. Di Zaro.”

“Are you denying your BFF the pleasure of your company?” I say with a mischievous grin. “Your very pregnant BFF?”

He sighs at my use of emotional blackmail, but sets down the wine bottle, and pulls out the chair beside me. “One glass, Sunny.”