Page 62 of The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough)

“But you’re hurt by that comment,” he said. “By pieces of your life anyway.”

“I am.”

“Amazing.”

“Do you think I shouldn’t be?”

He shook his head slowly. “No. That’s not what I mean at all. Of course you can be hurt. I am only... I am turning over what that means for me.”

“Did you think that you were healed?”

“I’m fine.”

“Dario,” she said. “You can’t even speak your name to me. I don’t think you’re fine.”

After that, they didn’t speak much. They only packed up and made their way to his glorious Manhattan penthouse. It made her apartment look like a hovel. It was the entire top floor of the apartment building and overlooked the most brilliant views in New York. She imagined him coming here as a boy, and the way he must’ve looked up at these buildings. And the way he looked down now.

Looking at him, she knew that he had those exact thoughts. It wasn’t an accident.

She had always seen Dario as difficult. And then as someone inflexible who looked down on her. She had never seen him as wounded. Now she was forced to. He was still so very much that boy that had come here with nothing. And she wondered how many of the things he did were based on that. She had her own issues, that much was certain. But not like him. She’d always had safety. That was the biggest difference. They had both experienced loss. They both understood that pain. But he had experienced scarcity, fear, uncertainty. Abuse. She had never had to contend with any of that. And still she was affected. How much more so must he be?

It made her want to give to him. Because hadn’t he given so much to her already?

He had seen something in her that she hadn’t fully seen herself. Something she’d been hopeful about, but hadn’t been certain of. He had told her without reservation that she was smart. That she was talented.

He hadn’t denigrated her workspace. Hadn’t called her disorganized. He seemed interested.

She wanted to figure out how to heal him. But she didn’t know how.

Not really.

She came from a much easier background, and she couldn’t sort through exactly how somebody like her could help somebody like him.

She wanted to, though. More than anything.

And if those feelings were maybe a little bit more, a little bit beyond what she wanted, what she wished, well, she was just going to have to deal with it. Because it was, absolutely, but it was.

Dario had been a fixture in her life for a long time. And now they were going to be married.

It was impossible to not have feelings.

She was going to ask him if she was going to have her own room.

But before she could get the words out, he leaned in and kissed her.

And then she found herself being carried off to his bedroom.

And the logistics just suddenly didn’t matter anymore.

Because she was here with Dario.

And they were going to make a life together, whatever that looked like.

And she was going to find a way to give him whatever he needed.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HISHOUSEHADchanged since Lyssia had moved in. He supposed that was somewhat inevitable. She wasn’t a neat or contained person. She was an eclectic explosion of color. There were clothes on the floor of his house.

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