Page 128 of Ivory Ashes

“Bath, mister,” Viviana reminds him, swatting him towards the hallway. “Then we’ll have dinner.”

Dante rolls his eyes, but listens to his mom. A few seconds later, the bathroom door clicks closed.

“Dinner might be in the air,” I tell her.

She was heading towards the end of the couch to sit, but she stops and stares at me. “On the plane?”

I nod. “I think it’s about time we headed home.”

“You don’t want to wait until morning?”

“Dante can sleep on the flight,” I point out. “And I have some things to take care of.”

She tugs her lower lip into her mouth and nods absently. I can see in her eyes that she’s a million miles away.

The five feet between us right now is almost too much to handle, so I can’t handle the far-off gaze on top of that. I wrap an arm around her waist and haul her against me.

Instantly, some deep, dark beast in my chest relaxes. With her sun-warmed skin against mine, I feel like I can breathe for the first time all day.

“You don’t want to go?”

“No, it’s not—Well, yeah,” she chuckles. “Of course I don’t want to go. It’s gorgeous here.”

“If you like the house, I’ll build you one in the city.”

She smirks. “Why do I think you’re serious?”

Because I am.

Because I’d do almost anything you asked of me without a second thought.

God, I am so fucked.

She sighs. “It’s not the house. It’s… everything. It’s how I feel when I’m here and all the free time we have. Plus, you’re different here.”

I twist a strand of her hair between my fingers. “I’m not different.”

She gestures both hands to me—to us. To the way we’re curled together on the couch, my hand in her hair, her head on my chest.

“You just seem more relaxed here.” She nuzzles her cheek against my chest. I can feel her warm breath on my skin. “I like seeing this side of you.”

I want to deny it, but there’s no point. Things have shifted between us over the last few days. Whatever walls were up between us have been heavily damaged, if not destroyed entirely. I mean, she’s stroking her thumb over my knee while I hug her to my chest. This feels more intimate than the sex.

It’s probably just that we’re in a little bubble here. There’s no one around except for us and Stella, but she has been making herself very scarce. Here, I’m not wrapped up in the politics of the Bratva. I haven’t thought about Trofim’s murder in days.

Once we’re back to normal life, things will go back to normal.

Maybe that’s why I announce, “We’ll have to take more vacations. Just the three of us.”

Viviana looks up at me with a smile. “Really? You’d want to do that?”

No. Fuck no. This is a business arrangement. I’m not going to get attached. I don’t have time for Viviana to be in love with me and I won’t be the husband and father she wants.

There’s no point getting any closer. It will just fuck everything up.

“Sure.” I press my thumb under her chin and tilt her head back for a kiss. She sighs into my mouth and I feel it in my bones. In my balls.

If I don’t get up now, we won’t be getting up for a while.

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