Page 35 of The Prizes We Win
“Okay,” he says before kissing my forehead. “I’ll go run one for you. You want to wash your hair or you want a clip?”
“Clip, please.” I could not think of anything worse than washing my hair right now.
“Thought so,” he chuckles.
“Come here, Mama.” Dante grabs me from Sebastian’s lap and sits me on his. I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his shoulders like a koala clinging to a branch. I bury my head in his neck as he wraps a throw blanket around me that he got up to get at some point.
I smile softly against his neck when I hear Seb ask him, “You good?”
“So good,” he replies before resting his cheek against the top of my head. Then, he starts rocking us both back and forth as the sound of the bath running fills the room. I find myself so comfortable that it takes everything in me not to fall asleep right here in his arms. But I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to miss this moment, here. With him.
“I love you,” I tell him calmly, not even lifting my head from his neck. I say it as casually as someone would say it’s raining outside. He’s quiet so I feel the need to clarify. “I know how hard this is for you, so you don’t have to say it back, but I do, Dante. I love you. I really—”
“I love you, Josephine,” his low voice says against the crown of my head before peppering it with kisses. “I love you so much.”
Finally, I pull my head from his neck and look up at him. And I swear to god, my heart almost bursts when I see tears poolingin his eyes. Holding his face in my hands I say, “You deserve to experience love, and you deserve tobeloved.” My thumb wipes away a stray tear that falls from his eyes before it even has a chance to make it to his cheek. “Byanyonethat will make you feel whole.”
He and I both know exactly who I’m talking about.
“I love you,” he whispers.
And because I have a feeling this man could never hear it enough, I tell him again, and again, andagain.
23
Enzo
“Well, well, well,” I say as I crack the door to Dante’s room and peek inside.
“What is it?” Luca asks, walking down the hall from his room where the two of us spent the night. He’s wearing a deep green Henley with the sleeves pushed up his forearms and the top few buttons undone. He’s paired it with a pair of light wash jeans and light brown Blundstones. All this is paired with his black-rimmed glasses, just the perfect amount of stubble across his sculpted jaw, and deliciously tousled hair. His entire appearance is just so casual and so… unlike him.
And yet, he looks fucking delicious.
He catches me eye-fucking him and smirks. “I’d ask if you see something you like, but I know we’d just wind up back in that bedroom, and we have shit to get done today.”
I tap the tip of my nose and wink. “Smart man.”
“I’m a CEO for a reason remember?”
I chuckle. “And here I thought it was just because everyone likes to look at ya.”
“Nah. That sounds more like my COO.”
Smiling, I roll my eyes and nod toward Dante’s door. “Look.”
Luca peeks inside and makes a satisfied grunt. “Well, this is an interesting development.”
Through Dante’s door, we can see into his open bathroom where Joe is currently soaking in the tub, and Dante and Sebastian are standing at the vanity in nothing but their briefs getting ready for the day.
“Good morning, boys,” Dante’s deep voice says without him even looking away from the mirror.
“How does he do that?” I whisper.
“I have no idea. I’ve been trying to figure it out for years,” Luca answers.
“Because I’m better than you,” Dante replies fighting a smirk. Joe and Sebastian don’t try as hard.
I push the door the rest of the way open, and Luca and I move toward the bathroom. “What happened to you being respectful and calling me, Boss?” Luca asks Dante.
