Page 80 of Vicious Little Princess

I eased my hand from his, then we sat back down on the couch and I turned to face him as I told him, “This wasn’t in my plans. At least not this early on. But, I did one day envision making my own family. One built with support and unconditional love—well, as close to that as it’s actually possible to get. One surrounded by love.”

“Something you don’t have with your own.”

“Something none of the four of us have. And, yeah, it would be nice to have a little heir too. Someone I can pass my empire onto. But whenever I envisioned that, there was always something stopping me.”

“Let me guess, your father?”

“Him and the entire Leone Family organization. I would never want my child to be born into what I was, to have to hurt through that, to have to suffer and fight so hard for their independence and just to live their life as they saw fit. I never wanted a child of mine to be brought into all this darkness and danger.”

“That’s what we’re doing here, changing all of that, upending the system, taking back our freedom, Cat.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Things have… heated up recently. And with this… development, this is the worst time for it.”

“So there was a price for extracting me that night?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“I need you to tell me what that is. But, keeping to the current subject at hand, regardless of what it was, like I said, we’ll find a way through. If you want this baby and—”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“You haven’t said how you feel about it.”

“Because I want you to decide where you stand first.”

I laid my hand on his thigh. “I appreciate it. I really do. But I want to know.”

A broad smile spread over his face as he spoke about it with a light in his eyes that I hadn’t seen from him since before the kidnapping nightmare. “I think that this is a beacon, darlin’.”

“A beacon?”

“Through all the dark and pain we’ve been caught up in for way too long. I think it will change a lot in the best ways. Expanding the family the four of us have been forming together? That love and care? What could possibly be bad about that, huh?”

I smiled. How could I not from his beautiful words? “Yeah, I can see that.”

“Yeah?” he asked, tipping my chin up with his index finger to guide my gaze to his. “This is our chance, Cat. To have something innocent, something pure and positive in our lives. A bright spark through all of this. If that’s what you want, I’m on board all the way. But obviously you need to be sure. Just don’t let what’s going on around us impact that decision for you. Don’t let them take more than they’ve already taken from us.”

A knock sounded on the door, startling the both of us.

“Yes?” I answered.

“Security,” a familiar voice spoke. “Need a word.”

“Come in.”

A moment later, the door opened and Tony Amato walked on in.

I saw Julian’s surprise.

He’d thought that Rocco and his unit had still been watching the house because Nico had initially told him that when he’d been trying to reassure him that he was safe from that psychopath, bringing in some of his own soldiers to guard Charon Manor.

But with what Nico and Milo were immersed in today, Nico had switched that out to Tony for the time being.

Tony was a year younger than the boys, but he’d proven himself to be one of Nico’s top soldiers. Not as good as Rocco, but he was definitely getting up there and proving himself.

He gave Julian a polite chin lift, then shoved a hand through his short, curly blond hair as his gaze went to me. “Sorry to bother you, but we’ve got two surprise visitors at the gates wanting passage to meet with you. Leones. Dante Rivera and Matteo Ricca. Nico’s unreachable right now and he ordered us to defer command on security issues to you anyway while he’s not here.”

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