Page 71 of Assassin's Heart
No, I wouldn’t regret it. How could I regret taking a chance on the man who meant more to me than anyone in my life besides my daughter?
I gave myself one more moment, then… “I won’t move Brooke right now. She needs the stability of her home, her life.” Of course the state of that home might mean a delay, given the state it had been in when I left, but still… “I’m not going to uproot her, not until things are…definite.” Until the questions were answered and I knew for sure, a hundred percent
Remi’s body relaxed against me, relief softening the tension in his face. “No, of course not. We’ve got time.”
My fingers clenched, scraping against his beard again. “Yes, we do. I love you, Remi.”
“You own me,lev sheli,” he said roughly. Using his grip on my hair, he pulled me down beside him as he lay back on the bed. “You’ve always owned me. You always will.”
I hoped so. As Remi took my mouth again, I stared into his beautiful eyes and knew he owned me as well. The assassin I’d trusted with my heart.
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Epilogue
Two months later
Remi—
I finally ran Levi to ground in the basement. There’d been a strain around him lately; since I’d made things official with Leah, actually. He’d always been the one in control, but now our family was changing. It was hard for any of us to accept, but especially for him.
And now it was about to change even more. Fiori was dead—heart attack, or so everyone believed; I couldn’t help feeling a bit smug about that—and it was time for Leah and me to move on. Together.
“Hey, can we talk?” I asked, dropping down on the couch next to him. Levi paused his game without looking at me. Not a good sign.
I waited. He’d acknowledge me when he was ready, though the tension in his shoulders told me he really didn’t want to.
Finally he threw his controller onto the little table in front of us. “When you leaving?”
Not the direction I was going, but... “In a few hours. Got a hot date with a six-year-old.”
Levi turned to me then. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
My confusion got worse. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Are you moving?”
“What? When?”
Levi rubbed a hand down his face. “I assumed soon. Isn’t that what you came to tell me?”
“Hell no.”
Some of the tension in my brother’s body eased. “So where are you going?”
“To Leah’s, tonight. Brooke challenged me to a rematch since I beat her at Apples To Apples.” It wasn’t Cards Against Humanity by any means, but sometimes I could get Leah to play with me after Brooke went to bed, and those games were always dirty. Especially when I made up the matches.
“Oh.” He picked his controller back up, fiddled with it, but I noticed the game stayed paused.
“I’m not moving, Levi, but I did want to talk to you about a move.”
More fiddling. “You don’t need my permission.”
No, I didn’t. But this wasourhome, not mine. And what I was proposing might mean big changes for all of us.
“I want to ask Leah to move in with me here.”
As soon as the words left me, I lost the ability to breathe. This was only the first hurdle, but a big one. If Levi didn’t want my woman and her daughter—especially her daughter—in our home, then I would be talking about me moving. I didn’t want that. I loved my family, all of it. I wanted every member under one roof, not this constant scattered feeling, the gnawing knowledge that I could only protect Leah and Brooke part of the time.
