Page 76 of Shattered Engagement

And I think of the woman I am now—the woman who understands that true love is a battlefield. A crown for which you bleed. A life you construct from ashes with your own hands.

I lift my head and meet his gaze, letting him see the raw truth there.

"I wouldn't change anything," I say.

His hand tightens slightly on my waist. "Neither would I."

“I need you,” I whisper, the longing I felt earlier melting into something more desperate. “Every second of every day, I need you.”

His eyes darken as his thumb traces my lower lip. “I’m here, now and always.”

Something breaks inside me—the careful walls I’ve built, the composure I’ve maintained throughout this period. I surge forward, claiming his mouth with mine, tasting whiskey and love and life on his tongue.

He responds instantly, arms wrapping around me as he devours me with equal hunger. The kiss is violent, a clash of teeth and tongues, hands grasping and pulling as if we could crawl inside each other’s skin. I bite his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, needing to taste his life, to prove he’s real.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he growls against my mouth, hands sliding to grip my hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Watching you these past weeks, not being able to touch you—”

“Then touch me now,” I demand, already working on his shirt buttons, needing to see the damage again, to catalogue what’s changed. His chest is revealed, his new scars livid against olive skin—the puckered circle where Luca’s bullet entered, smaller marks from the fragments it left behind as it tore through him.

I trace them with trembling fingers, then replace my touch with my lips, tasting the raised flesh, salt and skin and survival. His breath hitches as my tongue traces the largest scar, his hands tangling in my hair to guide me back to his mouth.

“I want to take my time with you,” he murmurs, nipping at my jaw, my neck, the sensitive spot behind my ear that makes me shiver. “But I don’t think I can.”

“Later,” I agree, already working on his belt buckle, desperate for skin against skin. “We have forever for slow. Right now, I need you inside me.”

His growl vibrates against my throat as he lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carries me to the nearest wall. My dress bunches around my hips, his hands finding me already wet for him, ready from the moment he walked into our room.

“Mine,” he says as he slides into me in one powerful thrust that steals my breath. “Sempre mia.”

“Always yours,” I agree, clutching his shoulders as he buries his cock inside me again and again, filling me so damn perfectly. The sweet burn of reunion obliterates three weeks of abstinence in an instant. “Don’t you dare get shot again.”

His rhythm is punishing, each thrust pressing me harder against the wall, reclaiming what has always been his. I match his intensity, nails scoring his back, marking him as thoroughly as he’s marking me.

“Never,” he promises against my skin, teeth grazing my collarbone. “Never again,principessa.”

The pleasure builds fast and fierce, my body remembering his like no time has passed at all. When I shatter around him, crying his name—his real name—he follows immediately, his release hot and pulsing inside me as he buries his face in my neck.

We stay joined, trembling in each other’s arms as reality slowly filters back through the haze of pleasure. Outside, rain lashes the windows. Inside, our breath mingles in the space between our mouths.

“I love you,” I whisper, the words no longer frightening now that I know what life without him feels like. “I thought I’d died with you that night.”

His thumb brushes away tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “Part of me did die. The ghost. The revenge. All of it bled out on that marble floor.” He kisses me softly, a contrast to our frantic coupling moments before. “What’s left is just Stefano. Just a man who loves you. If that’s enough.”

I laugh through my tears, pressing my forehead to his. “It’s everything.”

Outside, empires rise and fall. Inside, in the circle of his arms, I am finally, completely free.

28

Alessio

For the past few days, sleep has not come easily, and it is due to the glimpses of sadness I have seen cross Isadora’s face.

She sits across from me at the breakfast table, the morning sun spilling golden light across her hair. She talks softly about plans for the day, her voice a balm I don't deserve but cling to anyway.

I watch her, memorizing every curve of her face, every flicker of emotion she doesn't bother to hide from me anymore.

When there's a slight pause, I set my coffee cup down, "I have some business to take care of today," I say.

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