Page 48 of Beautiful Vows

Lia

It’s dark out and I’m pretty sure it’s the middle of the night. I’m just laying here in silence, thinking about the past few days on repeat. It’s like I’m stuck on a never-ending loop and I just want it to end.

“You okay?” he asks.

My back is against his chest. One of his arms is under the pillow my head is on, his free hand on my tummy. He’s all around me, like he’s part of me. Or scared I’m going to run.

“Just thinking,” I murmur.

“Careful…” He presses a kiss against my neck. “I’ve heard what happens when you think.”

“Oh, have you? Are you scared?” I squeeze his thigh and stop what I was about to say and instead ask, “What happened to our divorce?”

“I had people sort that out.” He kisses my shoulder this time. “You know I’m yours. You know you’re mine.”

“Which people?”

After a heavy exhalation, he grumbles, “Is that all you took from that?”

I chuckle lightly. “No. I heard you tell me I own you.”

He sinks his teeth into my shoulder before sucking. “I’m going to mark you.”

I lift my arm in the air and wiggle my left hand, fourth finger. “You already did.”

“Ah yes, that ring needs to be darker now that you’re ready to let the world know who you are?”

“What makes you say that?” I try to glance over my shoulder and see him.

He pulls away from me, flipping me around until my head rests on his chest. My hand covers his beating heart as I wait.

“You’ve let the Mafia know you exist. Your inheritance has been watched for years. People have been waiting for the dormant account to be activated.”

“I thought everyone knew I existed when you activated my DNA.”

“You know?” he asks, stunned into silence.

“Jove sent me the video of you killing the men who turned up outside the building.”

“Mmm.”

“My thoughts exactly. You’d already married me when you went to retrieve the DNA results. You’d already gotten me pregnant. What if…”

He presses a kiss on my head. “I never needed a DNA result to know you were mine. You were mine, regardless of the result.”

“Even if I wasn’t Aurelia Moretti?” I ask, stunned.

“I was praying you were. In my heart, I knew you were, but it was too late for me by then.”

“Dante.” His name rolls off my tongue, but nothing follows.

What can?

“It was too late because I was already in love with you.”

My battered heart flips, knowing in all this darkness my husband is the sweetness of men.

“Did you find out who killed your mother?” he asks after a moment of silence.

---