Page 37 of Rome for the Holidays
He nodded, “No sense wasting that money on a hotel room you aren’t using.”
She blinked at him, “I can’t stay here.”
His arms tightened around her, “You are not leaving me Harper. I have waited eleven years to meet you, kiss you and hold you in my arms. To fucking make you mine. You are not going anywhere now.”
Her eyes went soft, “I have waited to meet you too. Longed for this day. I thought we were insane for writing so long and never actually talking.”
He chuckled, kissing her softly, “We may not have heard each other’s voices, but that did not matter to me. I knew from the second I saw your picture you were mine.”
She looked down at his mouth, leaning in and kissing it, “I knew then too.”
Vincenzo lifted her away from the door, and sat with her in his lap at his desk, “I am sorry for not speaking to you when you needed me the most.”
Her eyes locked with his, “You saved me Vin. But these last months were not when I needed you. You already saved me. I just wish I would have known you were struggling and hurt. I hate that you dealt with that alone.”
Vincenzo put his forehead to hers, “I was never truly alone. I always had you with me, I just could not put my thoughts to paper. Too much happened in that brief time, and I hate that you ever believed I could abandon you.”
She looked down, “I was used to it.”
He put his finger under chin, “Never again will you have to be used to it. I am sorry I never wrote to you. I hate that you think I could ever abandon you. I just had so much to take care of, and with being injured and my father’s death, a lot happened.”
“How come someone killed him? Were you involved in some kind of theft gone wrong?”
Vincenzo shook his head slowly, “No, my father was the Don of our family.”
“The Don? What does that mean?”
“Have you heard of the mafia?”
She laughed, “Everyone has heard of the mafia.”
He lifted an eyebrow, and she blinked, “You are in the mafia?”
He chuckled, “Not in. The Don. I am the head of my family now.”
“Holy shit,” she breathed, and Vin laughed, “It’s normal here. There are lots of families connected with the mafia. That was the family business I told you about.”
“I thought your father owned a store or something. I didn’t know you were in the mafia.”
He chuckled again, “It is not something I could write about. It is generally not spoken of. Just something understood here.”
“Oh. Um. Okay. But you are the head?”
He nodded, “After my father was killed, I became the Don.”
“Weren’t you shot too?”
He nodded, “Once in the arm and a slight graze on my leg.”
“A graze.”
He nodded, “Slight. I barely needed stitches for that one.”
She shook her head, “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I knowpiccola.”
“Little one? Really?”
