Page 64 of Under His Protection

“What do you want out of your future?” he asked, tucking in closer.

“In general?” I asked.

He nodded, rubbing my back with this tighter embrace. The only distance remaining between us were the few inches so we could face each other for this conversation, but from chest down, we were plastered against each other, cocooned under the sheets and blanket with warmth.

“I’ve always wanted to go to college.” I felt sheepish to say that, since he was so much older and that was not something he could personally relate to. He’d already grown up past the academic years of youth, already had a career, multiple businesses, and great wealth. Every difference between us seemed like another reason we didn’t make sense, but I did my best to ignore that.

“For what?” He sounded intrigued, not peeved or irritated that I’d want something so far beneath his age.

“Children’s literacy. I’ve looked into education programs, but I don’t want to be a teacher in a classic sense, standing at the front of a classroom. I want to specialize in literacy, though.”

He kissed my forehead. “Something simple and good.” Then he chuckled. “I like that. It’s an ideal opposite to the complicated darkness that I deal with in my life.”

“I never had much of a chance to plan for college, let alone work toward it. Ricky took everything, and once Dad died and gave us money in his will, that idiot lost all that too.”

He exhaled a long, tired breath. “Henry wasn’t around to raise your brother any better.”

I nodded, hating that it was true. “And my grandma gave up. She provided shelter and the necessities the best she could, but she’d already raised a child. She already went through parenting and was too tired and unhealthy to want to embrace it again.”

“I’m sorry you suffered through your childhood.”

“It is what it is. For a long time, I hated that Dad couldn’t stay. He abandoned us. But I guess parenthood isn’t for everyone. I mean, my mom ran off sooner.”

“I think Alison probably realized what a military household looked like and wasn’t interested. That’s no excuse, but like you claim, it is what it is.”

None of us could change the past. I’d dismissed my mother long ago, never having the chance to know her or to remember her. Thinking about the time behind us, I wondered again how my dad, Dante, and Stefan could have ever been friends. More so, that they weren’t friends now or hadn’t been recently.

“Do you say that in terms of how you all drifted apart? You, my dad, and Stefan?”

“Yes. It’s like I told you earlier. We simply wanted different things. We weren’t pulled in the same direction.” He frowned. “Well, Stefan and I were. We both followed the expectations to take over our families. He became the head of the Giovanni name and I took over the Constella Family when my father died.”

“But you are rivals now.” I rubbed along his jaw, hoping he could see the gratitude in my eyes. “I appreciate your standing up to him—where I’m concerned.”

“Even if he hadn’t befriended those bikers, I would’ve said the same. No one is taking you from me, Nina. I mean it.”

Touched by his fierce words, I kissed him, pouring all my love into the press of my lips to his.

“Stefan has made himself my enemy, though. Not only in butting into my life and trying to get me to give you up, but also by siding with those bikers. He sided with the Domino Family before the MC tore them apart, and it’s just the most recent things in his pattern of making greedy and stupid choices.”

“Is that why Stefan is so eager for you to marry Vanessa? To link you to him somehow?” These Mafia politics would take a long time to figure out. “He seems so certain that you should be with her. Like… like an arranged marriage.”

He sighed. “Arranged marriages do happen in our world. It’s a common practice for combining Families and strengthening power. I was arranged to marry Grace, and she didn’t live two months after Romeo’s birth. Since I’m older, I would hope I could be exempt from that whole ordeal.” He smiled. “And since I’ve found you, I want you, no one else.”

My heart swelled with hope and love. It seemed far too soon to use the L-word with Dante.

“I’m too powerful as the established boss of the family to be tugged and manipulated into an arranged marriage.”

“But did Stefan ever think you had an old agreement or something? Did you talk about the future among the three of you that he’d get so hooked on the possibility of Vanessa marrying you?”

He shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. We didn’t talk about that back then.” With a wicked grin, he lowered his hand to my ass and pulled me closer to his naked body. “I imagine if Henry were alive and knew what I wanted to do to you, he’d kick my ass.”

I bit my lip, properly teased and giddy about Dante’s fantasies that might star me. “Oh, yeah? What do you want to do to me?”

The kiss he gave me was slow and seductive. “I’ll show you.”

25

DANTE

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