Page 39 of Ti Amo

“Don’t use that word.” Mira stiffened.

“Why not? It’s what she is if you aren’t my wife.” The bitterness in his voice chilled her.

“I have to be honest, Giovanni, I’ve never been big on marriage.”

He chuckled. “That’s because you didn’t have me.”

“Oh brother!” she hit him playfully.

“What I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t either. Until I found you.” He clarified.

Mira liked the sound of his explanation.

“What are your reservations about going public?”

Mira shrugged. “I’m safer this way.” She didn’t want to hurt him, but she preferred that his enemies not know about her and Eve until he settled the unrest around him.

“You fear Angelo will come after you again?”

“Don’t you?”

“The only thing I fear is my life without you. I’ll never make the mistakes of the past again.”

“Well I’m here now, baby. I don’t plan on leaving.” She sidled up even closer to him.

He kissed her brow. He sat forward, and she sat up to accommodate him. He put the wineglass down. Mira lowered hers. Giovanni stretched out on the sofa sideways, and she lay with him. His arm draped over her waist. “When was my daughter born? How was she born?”

“The old fashion way. I opened my legs and out she came.”

He tickled her side, and she squealed kicking her feet. Once her laughter subsided she captured enough breath in her lungs to speak. “She was born January the 31st. Most memorable day of the year in Switzerland!” she proclaimed.

“Why is that?”

“It was like spring in the middle of winter, if that makes sense. Everybody talked about that day for weeks. I missed it, because she had me in labor for nine hours.”

“My firefly. She’s just like a Battaglia. We do it grand.” He folded her up in his arms. She rolled into his chest and pressed her face there. Her thigh lifted and covered his causing her robe to part and reveal how sexy her legs were to him.

“I was terrified.” She held him. “Kei brought the midwife, but I was scared and in so much pain. I thought of Fabiana. How she’d tease me. I thought of my grandmother and how she would comfort me. I thought of you too. I wondered where you were, what you would think of her birth. How you would receive our child.”

“I should have been there,” he said sadly.

“Yes.” She yawned. “You should have.”

Giovanni rested his head on the pillow of the sofa and stared out at the night. She kissed his chest and settled back against him, pushing her breasts flat to his chest and her sex up against his thigh. Soon his lids grew heavy and together they drifted to sleep. However, it wasn’t for long. He woke to find her resting peacefully in his arms. He had intended to propose. He wanted to do it in the most romantic way. But each time he tried, he couldn’t find the moment. And to be honest, his fear of rejection held him back. Giovanni eased his hand down into the pocket of his robe and her leg fell off his. He retrieved the ring earlier from his trouser pocket when he came downstairs to get their wine.

He held up the antique white gold setting around a 2 ct., flawless, square cut diamond. He’d buy her a larger diamond if she wanted one, but he prayed she’d prefer to wear this one. His father never married his mother. However, after he came for them and brought them back from Ireland he put this ring on his mother’s finger. He never heard the word whore mentioned by anyone in her presence again. When Evelyn took ill she gave him this. She wanted him to give it to his wife someday.

“Bella?” he whispered, but half the word lodged in his throat. He cleared his voice. “Bella,” he said again.

She stirred a bit but didn’t wake. Giovanni reached for her hand. It was a struggle but he managed to lift himself so he could ease the family heirloom on her ring finger. As he slid it up past her knuckle her eyes opened. She blinked at him confused.

“Mirabella.Ti amo. Will you marry me?”

She stared at him for a long moment, and he wondered if she heard him. Slowly she lifted her hand and inspected the ring on her finger, sparkling in the darkness. “It’s my mother’s. She wanted me to give it to my wife someday. It means a lot if you will honor me and wear it.”

“Marry you?” she repeated.

“I know it seems sudden. But I lost you once. I-I don’t want to wait. Not on anything. I need you to be my wife.”

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