Page 124 of Ruthless Vow
She smiles. The kind that transforms her whole face. The kind I want to spend the rest of my life earning.
Then she’s gone, off to wash away three days of exhaustion.
I watch the empty doorway. Listen to her footsteps fade.
The medical wing is quiet. Morning light. Monitors beeping. The hum of machines that kept me alive long enough to get here.
I’m going to marry her. For real this time. Rings. Vows. Nonna Rosa crying in the front row.
Cazzo.
I’ll cry too. And if anyone says a word about it, I’ll put them in the ground.
I shut my eyes. Let the warmth of the morning sun wash over me. Flex my dead arm and grin like an idiot.
She loves me. And my whole left side is numb.
Worth it.
30
CASSIA
Seven sunrises from this room.
The first two from the chair by the window, my fingers pressed to his wrist. Checking. Rechecking. The rest from right here. His bed. Pressed against his side with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear.
Seven mornings ofTi amo, tesoromurmured against my hair before he opens his eyes.
Seven mornings of those words landing in my chest like a fist. My ribs tighten around them. Every time, my palm finds his chest on its own, pressing down, feeling the thud.
Dante’s awake. Has been for a while, based on the tension in his shoulders. He’s staring at the ceiling like it offended him.
“No,” I say before he can move.
His head turns. Dark gaze finds mine.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.” I push up onto my elbow, letting the sheet pool at my waist. “You had that look. The one that means you’re about to do something stupid.”
“I was going to check in with Renzo.”
“From bed. Using your phone. Like a reasonable person recovering from being poisoned.”
He sits up. The muscles in his abdomen flex, and I track the movement, taking stock. Better color today. The gray pallor from that first terrible night is gone. He looks like himself again. Dangerous and vital and too stubborn for his own good.
“I’ve been in this bed for a week.”
“You were twenty minutes from cardiac arrest.”
“I’m fine.”
I flatten my palm against his chest. Right over his heart. “You’re not fine. You’re stubborn. There’s a difference.”
That curve at the corner of his mouth. The one that used to be rare and is becoming familiar.
“You married stubborn.”
