Page 54 of Enforced

I pushed to my feet, my whole body protesting and breaking out in a cold sweat. My physician had warned me to stay in bed for at least another week and to not stress my body and overdo things. “Well I was wrong,” I said in a neutral voice, though I was seriously overexerting myself.

“What do you mean?”

She was going to make me spell it out for her, and though I couldn’t blame her, I was rapidly declining. I’d need to find a bed to collapse onto very soon.

But first things first.

I stepped toward the kitchen, my knuckles white as I gripped the island counter’s chipped edge, my whole body sagging. “I mean…nearly dying opened my eyes and widened my tunnel vision. I rejected the one woman I should have accepted into my life.”

She gasped, her entire body trembling. At this rate we’d both be collapsing onto a bed. A pity I didn’t yet have the stamina to pound inside her like we both wanted.

I leaned harder on the counter, exhaustion threatening. “You were the one woman who understood me on every level. The one woman I yearned to be with even while I was too damn proud to admit that your wellbeing was just an excuse to send you away.” I sighed heavily. “I’d move heaven and earth to keep you safe.”

She bit her bottom lip, though the wariness in her stare was fading slowly. “What does Carlo have to say about that?”

“He no longer gets a say when it comes to my heart.” My smile was hard. “He knows better now than to interfere.” Carlo had grasped the fact I’d woken only thanks to Chantilly.

She sighed softly, apparently still not fully convinced. “Men like you don’t know how to love.”

“Don’t we?” I held her gaze. “Did you not see Ethan and Sabrina? Salvatore and Isabella?”

She didn’t need to answer, her silence confirmed everything.

I swallowed hard, my pulse flailing. “After I forced you to leave, I lost all control. I didn’t want to live anymore…not without you. Since I’d already gotten rid of Sean, I went after the fishermen who’d left you to drown. I was mindless, merciless, I didn’t care about killing…or dying.”

She pressed a shaky hand to her forehead.

Did she despise me now? Was love too much to hope for?

I cleared my throat. “I just need to know one thing?” At her nod I asked, “Has time shown you’re better off without me?”

Her sudden laugh edged toward hysteria. “Not at all. I missed you more with every passing day.”

Relief almost folded me in half. I managed to stay upright. “I don’t want to lose you, Tilly. I want to be with you.”

She crossed her arms and tilted her head to one side, her long dark hair falling over one shoulder. “Do you really? Because I can’t go through this all again—“

“I love you,” I growled, wishing I had the strength to show her physically as much as emotionally.

“Y-you do?”

I managed a smile, though I wondered if it showcased the whiteness around my lips. “With every cell in my body.”

Her eyes turned watery then, and I released the counter and stepped toward her before I drew her into my arms, absorbing her warmth, her radiance as she sobbed happy tears.

I kissed the top of her head, then stepped back, though it took everything I had not to keep her in my arms. I withdrew a lighter and nodded at the tiny round table in the corner of the room. “Happy birthday, my little Tilly.”

She gasped at the cake I’d placed there earlier in its opened box. She followed me as I stepped toward it, then lit the candle I’d stuck in the middle of the pink icing with its border of strawberries.

She turned to me then, the flickering candlelight reflecting in her eyes when she said, “I love you too, Valentino.”

I knew then, with every last ounce of strength in my body, she was forever mine and I was forever hers. And we’d spend a lifetime proving our love to one another.