Page 113 of Claimed
His gaze softened for the first time since he’d started the story. "You think so?"
"I know so." I swallowed. "And maybe. . .you can start to let go of the guilt. Just a little. I never met Genny, but I imagine she wouldn’t want you to carry that burden forever."
“Maybe one day.” He gave me a small, sad smile. "But anyway. . .back to my mother and that feast.”
I bit back tears.
Part of me wanted to talk about it more with him, help him heal. However, death was hard. I’d learned that with my mother. And sometimes the healing came from living.
So, I brightened up and nodded. “Yes. Back to the story that is making me incredibly hungry.”
He grinned. “I wish you were there. My mother and brothers and I laughed and drank wine the whole time. We talked about the old times. It was a good night.”
“It sounds amazing.”
His eyes watered and he turned away. “The next morning, it was my grandmother who called me. I’d given her a phone and she barely knew how to use it in that damn village that she refused to leave. . .but. . .uh. . .it was grandmother who called and told me that my mother had passed and that it would be okay because her spirit was now with Genny and my father. She said it so calm like she knew this for sure to be true.”
My heart ached for him, yet again.
“I went to my mother’s house and her maid had just found her lying in bed dressed in a silver gown with her hair perfectly done. She wore one of the fur coats I bought her—all white with this black trim. And. . .on the nightstand. . .there was a bottle of sleeping pills.”
I widened my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Gianni.”
“It has been four years. I have made peace with it.” He turned back to me and those eyes no longer watered. “I do miss her.”
“Of course you do.”
“She took off her ring and left a note that said it was for whichever of her sons got married first, and she said sorry to us, but she missed our father too much and that she still loved us.” He lifted my hand between us and gestured to my ring. “That was hers.”
“What?”
“I’m the first to marry.”
I looked down at it and swallowed. Now knowing its history, I felt a sudden rush of emotion wash over me.
“When I slipped the ring on your finger last night. . .I felt her near. . .I could feel my heart filling with her blessing from thebeyond.” He nodded quietly. “She was an incredible woman, my mother.”
His voice softened. “I see a lot of her in you, and. . .I know she would have adored you.”
A lump formed in my throat at his words. It was one thing for him to want to possess me—that was the sort of men in this world—but it was another thing entirely for him to relate me to someone so dear to his heart.
Someone he lost yet treasured so much.
My bottom lip quivered.
He touched my chin and lifted my view to him. “Never will I hurt you, cheat, or treat you lower than a queen. Your finger wears my mother’s ring. You are now the only person on this earth that I will honor. The only woman I will kill for and die over.”
As we sat in that boutique, surrounded by the rich scents of leather and perfume, I found myself utterly lost in Gianni's words.
The stories he shared were more than just a glimpse into his past—they were pieces of his soul that he had entrusted to me.
Never had I felt soseen, so loved.
In fact, all my life, I had felt like I was drifting, alone and out of place in a world that never quite fit. I had always been on the outside, looking in, trying to find where I belonged.
But now, sitting here with Gianni, listening to him speak with such vulnerability, I knew I had found that place.
The way he looked at me, the way he spoke about his mother and then tied that love to me, to the ring on my finger—it was as if he had opened a door to a part of his heart that had long been sealed shut.
