I fired my weapon in the air. It echoed like a cannon in my ears. Giovanni jerked toward the sound and stared at me with wide eyes. Lowering the weapon, I yelled, “Let her go.”
Malice filled Giovanni’s light eyes. He jerked Natalie in front of him as a shield. “If I die, she dies.” He shuffled back a step as the wind whipped his hair around his face. “Are you willing to shoot both of us, fratello?”
Natalie’s shocked and terrified eyes locked on mine. I gripped the gun in both hands and kept the weapon trained on Giovanni as I stepped forward. “Let her go, Gio. This is between you and me.”
“You have a gun. Something tells me you have the upper hand.” He shuffled back another step.
Natalie’s eyes widened even more. Without moving her head, she looked down, and I knew she was searching for the edge of the cliff, that she knew they were close.
My heart beat double time, but I forced myself to stay calm. “Let her go, and I’ll go easy on you, Gio, I promise.”
“You’ll go easy on me?” he hissed. “You’re nothing but a fucking liar. I should be in charge of this House. I should be the one they all bow down to. You’re nothing. Father knew you were worthless, and so does everyone else. You’ve made me crawl and hide like a fucking rat these last few months, and I won’t do it anymore.” He tugged Natalie back another step. “You’re destroying everything Father built! I’m the heir to House Salvatici. I’m the one who should be in charge, not you! I’m only one fit to lead this Hou—”
Natalie drew her arm forward and slammed her elbow straight back into Giovanni’s gut. His eyes flew wide, he grunted and jerked back. The second he eased his hold on her, she whipped around and faced him.
“You’re done, that’s what you are.” She slammed her hands into his chest, knocking him back another step.
I flew forward. Giovanni wobbled, suddenly realizing his foot was on the edge of the cliff. Rocks brock free and fell over the side. He threw his arms out to grab Natalie, but I hooked my arm around her waist and jerked her back toward me, away from him.
The ground gave and crumbled. I hit the hard rocks on my butt, and Natalie crashed into me. Giovanni screamed and flailed, but it was too late. His body toppled into the darkness, and his scream died out until there was nothing left but the sound of waves crashing hard against the rocks far below.
“Oh my God.” Natalie scrambled off me, breathing hard in the wind as she stared at me. “L-Luc?”
I dropped the gun at my side and pushed up, rushing to the edge of the cliff to look down. Giovanni was splayed across the rocks, motionless.
I felt nothing for my brother. Nothing but relief he was gone and that Natalie was safe. My heart raced as I moved back to her. Crouching in front of her, I gently reached for her arms. “Are you hurt? Where did he hurt you?”
“I’m okay. I’m not hurt, I’m...” Her eyes filled with tears, and she reached out to touch me only to slowly draw her hand back. “Oh my God. Is that really y-you? Luc, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. I got here as fast as I could. When I found out he was heading for Tahiti, I—”
She threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck in a fierce hug that knocked me back onto my butt. Her body shook as she buried her face in my throat and whispered, “Luc...”
My adrenaline crashed, and my heart stuttered. Unable to hold back, I pulled her against me and held her just as tightly as she was holding me. “I’m here,” I whispered, suddenly fighting my own tears that seemed to have come out of nowhere. “I’m right here. I’ve got you, angioletto.”
She sobbed against me. I had no idea what she was thinking, didn’t know if this reaction was relief she was alive, or relief I was here, but I didn’t care. I pressed my lips against her ear, closed my eyes, and breathed her in, unable to do anything but hold on tighter.
“I don’t...” She sniffled against me. “I don’t understand. How did you know he was here? How did you get here?”
She drew back, and I let her go even though all I wanted to do was continue holding her. “I’ve been tracking him.” I tucked a lock of silky hair behind her ear, desperate to keep touching her. However I could. “I knew he was trying to find you. When I discovered he’d been in Australia, I flew right here.”
She sat back on her heels and looked down at my damp shirt. “So you came for Giovanni.”
“No, I came for you, angioletto. To protect you. Because...”
Her gaze slowly lifted to mine. And as our eyes held, I decided I didn’t care if she’d grabbed me only because she was relieved she was still alive. I was done with lies and secrets.
“Because I love you,” I said, my throat thick. “Because I never stopped loving you. Because the thought of anything happening to you makes it impossible for me to breathe or think or—”
She threw her arms around my neck again, only this time, she didn’t just hug me. She pressed her lips to mine. And the second she kissed me, I opened and devoured her mouth the way I’d dreamt of devouring her every moment since we’d been apart.
“I love you too,” she whispered against my lips, climbing onto my lap and kissing me again and again. “Oh, Luc, I love you so much.”
Everything I’d been holding back, all the pain and misery and love and loss I’d been struggling not to feel all these months, gathered inside me, broke free and consumed me. I was dizzy. Delirious. Shaking with the need to make things right. To show her just how much I still and always would love her.
She drew back from my lips long before I was ready to stop kissing her and looked at me in the moonlight. “I...I can’t believe you’re here. I feel like I’m dreaming.”
“You’re not dreaming. Because if you are, I am too.”
A soft laugh slipped from her lips, and she rested her forehead against mine. “I-I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“Impossible.” I slid my fingers up her back and over her arm, marveling at how soft her skin was. How could I have forgotten that?
“You’ve had plenty of women to keep you company.”
“What women?”
“All the ones you’ve been photographed with.”
“Have you been spying on me?”
She blushed. “It’s not spying when it’s all over the internet.”
“Angioletto.” I tipped her chin up with my finger so she could see my eyes. “They’re beards.”
“What?”
“Covers. To keep the Grande Cavaliere off my back. None of them meant anything to me. It was all for show. As soon as the cameras were off and the doors were closed, I kicked them out. I made a promise to you, remember?” I slid my fingers down her soft cheek. “To be faithful only to you.”
Hope filled her eyes, and I smiled because it was exactly what I’d ached to see.
“I haven’t been with anyone since you, Natalie.”
She grasped my left hand resting on her thigh where she was straddling me and looked at my finger. The ring and tattoo were gone, but when she pushed my sleeve back, her entire expression softened as she gazed at the bracelet still on my wrist.
“They made me have the tattoo removed,” I said softly. “And the legal paperwork might say we’re no longer married. But as far as I’m concerned, you are and always will be my wife. You’re the only woman in this world I want. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted.”
“Oh Luc.” She framed my face and kissed me. Slowly. With so much love in her eyes, I felt all the broken pieces inside me fuse back together.
“Please tell me we’re still unbreakable,” I whispered, gazing up at her. “I miss you. I miss you so much. And now that Giovanni isn’t a threat anymore, things can be different.”
“How?” She drew back and stared at me.
“He’s the only one who knew about your marking. Felicity told me she removed it. You can come back now. We can be together the way we should have been. I can really keep you safe in Italy now.”
Unease passed over her face. Before I c
ould figure out what she was thinking, she pushed off me and stood.
“Natalie?”
“Th-there’s something I need to show you back at the house. Something that…changes things.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I pushed to my feet and watched her carefully, but before I could ask what she meant, Haych rushed out of the foliage and skidded to a stop. “Miss Natalie?”
“I’m fine, Haych.” She crossed to him and quickly hugged him. “Are you all right?” She drew back and stared up at him. “Sela?”
“I’m fine. She’s fine. No worries.”
Natalie breathed easier.
Haych moved to the cliff and glanced over the side. “We need to take care of that before anyone shows up looking for him.”
My brain snapped back into action. Haych was right. I couldn’t be completely sure Giovanni had come all the way to the South Pacific alone. And if someone from my House or any of the other Houses found him here...
I focused on Haych instead of the nervous look suddenly consuming Natalie’s features. “We’ll need to take him out in the boat and dump his body far enough out so the current doesn’t bring him back.”
“We’ll need to do it soon. Current’s already trying to pull him out.”
I stepped past Natalie toward the path that led back to the house.
She turned to look after me. “Luc?”
“It’s okay.” I forced a smile I didn’t feel. “We’ll talk when I get back.”
But the whole way down all I could think about was what she could possibly tell me that would change things between us. And what I would do if she didn’t want to return to Italy with me.
I was a bundle of nerves by the time we got back.
Haych and I dumped Gio’s body twenty miles out, in an area I knew the current moved away from the island. The marine life there was plentiful. If he washed up on any nearby shores he’d be hard to identify, especially with his face smashed in from that fall on the rocks. Anyone who found him would assume he was a tourist who had one too many and hit his head when he fell overboard.
It was close to eleven p.m. when we docked. I’d been running on pure adrenaline the last thirty-six hours, but I wasn’t tired. All I could think about was returning to Natalie, pulling her into my arms, and showing her just how much I’d missed her these last eighteen months. And convincing her that whatever she needed to tell me didn’t change anything. I loved her. I’d always love her, no matter what had happened while we’d been apart.
I didn’t want her to see any lingering signs of what had happened to Gio, though. So I bypassed the house and followed Haych to his cottage to clean up. He and Sela had married in the time I’d been away and were now living in her villa. His things were mostly cleaned out save a few boxes of old clothes. I grabbed a T-shirt from the closest box and gave my bloody dress shirt to Haych with instructions to burn it and his soiled clothing the following day.
The lights were on in the main house when I pushed the front door open. Voices echoed from the kitchen—Natalie’s and Sela’s—and my nerves spun as I headed that way. The earlier mess had been cleaned up, and the villa was exactly as I remembered. But I was too focused on finding Natalie to appreciate it.
My heart skipped a beat when I entered the room and spotted Natalie at the table with a cup of tea in front of her. Our eyes held, and hers grew wary as she gazed at me. But underneath all those nerves I also saw heat. A heat that fired each cylinder in my body and brought every single neuron to life.
“Well?” Natalie pushed to her feet and stared at me from across the room. A bruise had formed on her cheek from Giovanni’s attack, but to me she’d never been more beautiful. An angel shining brighten the middle of all my darkness.
“All taken care of,” I answered.
“He won’t be bothering anyone ever again,” Haych said as he moved into the room at my side.
Natalie exhaled a relieved breath. Before I could go to her, though, Sela turned from where she was stirring something in a mug at the counter, spotted me, and shrieked, “Luc!”
She held a baby in her arms, one with dark hair and bronze skin I only saw for a few seconds before she pushed the child at Haych and threw her arms around my neck. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
I hugged her, catching Natalie’s amused expression across the room. As much as I wanted only to grab my wife and never let go, I didn’t want to be impolite. “Thanks. It’s good to be home.”
Even if it was only a brief visit.
I pushed that thought aside and realized something very hard and round was pressing against my stomach. Easing back, I looked down and lifted my brow in surprise. “You’re pregnant.”
“Yeah.” A proud grin curled Sela’s lips as she ran a hand over her swollen belly. “Only a few more months. I’m ready to be done.”
I glanced toward Haych who’d moved across the kitchen and was struggling with the dark haired baby, bouncing the kid in his arms as he fussed. I couldn’t tell how old the kid was but he had to be close to a year if Sela was pregnant already again. “You’ve been busy while I’ve been away.”
“Some. Not as much as you might think.”
“Here.” Natalie moved toward Haych and reached for the wiggling baby. “I’ll take him.”
The baby held out his arms for Natalie and made a cooing sound. As soon as she pulled him against her, he laid his head on her shoulder and started sucking on his fist.
A pang of loss hit me hard. I hadn’t let myself think too much about kids because I knew it was never an option for me. But as I watched Natalie gently rocking Sela’s baby, and I saw what a natural mother she was, something in my heart felt as if it shattered right there in front of her, even though I had no reason to feel anything but relief that she was safe once and for all.
“Luc?”
I startled at the sound of Sela’s voice and looked down. “Yeah.”
She smiled. “I asked if you were hungry. I could make something if you—“
“No, I’m fine.” I suddenly wanted her and her babies gone. I didn’t want to be reminded of everything I’d given up. I just wanted to reconnect with my wife and lose myself in Natalie’s sweetness. To convince her whatever she was worried about didn’t even matter. “I’m mostly just tired.”
“Of course you are.” She turned toward Haych. “We should probably go and let them get some sleep.”
Haych smirked, knowing full well I didn’t want sleep. He turned to Natalie. “Goodnight, Miss Natalie.”
“Thanks Haych. For everything.”
He blushed and crossed toward me to shake my hand and reassure me Sela wouldn’t be bugging us in the morning.
Sela moved Natalie’s way and the two women hugged. They exchanged quiet words I couldn’t make out, then I heard Sela say, “If you change your mind, call us.”
“Thanks.”
Haych joined Sela at the back door. With a wave, the two left holding hands.
I had no idea what had just happened. As Natalie moved toward me with the baby still in her arms, though, I panicked because my plans for a romantic night reconnecting with my wife were going to crash and burn if she had to babysit. “Why didn’t they take their baby?”
“Because he’s not their baby.”
I stared at her as she stopped in front of me, sure I’d heard her wrong. “Then whose baby is h—?“
“His name is Ian.” She glanced down at the baby resting on her shoulder, still sucking on his fist. “I told you there was something I needed to talk to you about. This is it. I-I named him after his father.”
My chest contracted. “He’s...yours?”
“Yes.”
Holy shit. The fact she’d named the kid after his father slammed into me, telling me she’d known the father, which meant he really was hers. Biologically. Not adopted.
My chest squeezed even tighter, making it hard to breathe. I moved back a half step.
“He’s nine months old.”
&nbs
p; Nine months... My brain spun. That meant she’d gotten pregnant not long after I’d sent her away. She’d been with another man weeks, maybe even days, after I’d divorced her.
I stumbled back another step, my skin growing hot, perspiration dotting my spine. She’d been with someone else...
And why wouldn’t she? I’d pushed her away, divorced her, told her we’d never see each other again. If she’d turned to someone else for comfort, could I blame her for that? I’d broken her heart. And yet...
My gaze drifted to the baby yawning in her arms. I hated the idea of her with anyone but me. Sickness churned in my stomach when I thought of another man kissing her, holding her, touching her—
“Ian is the Scottish Gaelic form of John,” Natalie said.
She stepped closer, and I tensed because I had nowhere else to go. The wall was already at my back. I had no right to be jealous, but...motherfucker...I was. Not just because she’d so easily replaced me after everything we’d been through, but because that man—whoever he was—had given her something I never could.
“It means ‘Gift from God.’ And I thought that was kind of fitting”—she glanced down at the now sleeping baby—“seeing as how he really is a miracle, and he was conceived in Scotland.”
My brain wasn’t working. Did she just say Scotland? She’d gone to Scotland after she’d left me in Italy? I supposed that was possible—she’d left on Felicity’s family’s jet—but I thought they’d flown right to the States.
“I couldn’t give him his father’s full name because that would be too obvious,” she said softly, “So I picked three letters from the middle of his name.”
For a split second, her words hung in the air around me, and then, when her meaning hit, my eyes narrowed in absolute disbelief. “Wait. Are you saying—?”
“I found out I was pregnant after I got here. At first, I thought it was stress and sadness messing up my cycle. Then I realized...it wasn’t. And I quickly understood why my stomach had been so queasy the whole time we were in Italy.”
My gaze shot to the sleeping baby on her shoulder—to his dark hair and olive coloring I suddenly realized weren’t like Haych’s as I’d automatically assumed. They weren’t like Haych’s at all. They were like mine.
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