by Olivia Gates
Before he could bring himself to ask, she scrambled off the bed and launched herself at him so explosively, she made him stumble and fall.
He barely caught himself before he crashed flat on the ground, cushioning her on top of him as she rained copious tears and frenzied kisses all over him. She sobbed so hard he was terrified she’d do herself real damage.
He frantically tried to soothe her. “Mi amore, please, nothing is worth your tears. I beg you, don’t cry.”
She shook her head and cried harder, but he finally understood what she was reiterating in her incoherent sobbing.
“My love, my love, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, so sorry...”
This was all for him.
His one-of-a-kind, magnanimous firecracker was breaking her own heart on his behalf.
He crushed her to him, trying to defuse her upheaval. “Mi amore, it’s all in the past. I just needed you to know.”
She struggled out of his hold and rose above him, her eyes reddened, her lips quaking. “And I’d give anything, everything, if I could undo it all, make you un-suffer every single second.”
He caught her face, stilled its shuddering. “You have. Just telling you, just that it didn’t matter to you, worked like an antidote to the poison I had in my system. I can now leave it all behind where it can’t touch me, or us, again. Just loving you erases it all, makes up for it a hundred times over.”
Her sobs lessened as he talked, stroked her hair, pressed her to his chest.
With her upheaval fading, she spoke against his flesh. “You know what’s driving me insane right now? Besides being unable to go after those who hurt you and making them suffer a far worse hell than the one they put you through? It’s that I had such a ridiculously easy life compared to you. I can’t even share your ordeals except in my imagination. And I hate it!”
He went still beneath her. His heart had expanded until he wondered if it would burst. Not a bad way to go, he thought. If he didn’t want to live forever. To be with Liliana.
“Mi amore, sposami. Marry me.”
His words echoed in absolute silence.
They’d both stopped breathing. The very world stopped turning.
Then both their chests emptied on ragged moans as she raised an unsteady head to look down at him, flabbergasted.
And everything poured out of him. “I never had a heart, but you created one inside me. A heart that was made to love you, that can’t survive without you. So if you want me alive, you’ll have to say yes.”
She burst into tears again. “God, Antonio, yes...yes. But...”
“No buts.”
“I was just going to say—but I think you should slow down, take more time to think about this. After you do—”
His lips silenced hers. “I can’t slow down, and I won’t think about it. I want nothing else but you. I now realize everything in my life has been leading up to this. This moment. This union. You.” He took her in another compulsive kiss. “So never say ‘but’ again.”
“Even if I say that no word remains after what you said ‘but’ yes?”
“You can say anything, as long as it ends in yes.”
And for the rest of the night, she said almost nothing but yes. She whimpered, whispered and screamed it. She said yes to him, to them, and to everything their future together would bring.
* * *
“You have to tell us, Lili.”
Lili turned to the redhead who regarded her with such warm curiosity. Scarlett Kuroshiro, the wife of Raiden, one of Antonio’s brothers, was unearthly beautiful. Her husband, who sat beside her, clearly as besotted with her as she appeared to be with him, was Japanese by birth and as gorgeous as she was in his own way. But what truly amazed Lili was their year-old baby daughter, who mixed them both into an incredible mixture. Their adopted children, five of them from four to eight years old, were all playing on the grounds of Antonio’s mansion with the other brothers’ kids and their nannies.
“Yes, you have to.” That was Jenan, another brother’s wife, the guy who looked like a genie. Sheikh Numair Al Aswad, the brotherhood’s leader. Jenan looked like she’d walked out of Arabian Nights herself, and actually was a princess. “We must know what you did to Antonio,” she said. “What superpowers do you have?”
Lili smirked. “This coming from the pantheon of gods and goddesses Antonio has for brothers and sisters.”
Everyone laughed. They’d been laughing every time she’d said anything. It was either that Antonio had given them strict orders to be super delighted with her every word, or that her brand of humor tickled them as much as it did him.
“It’s fate.” Rafael, the youngest brother, a Brazilian and another juggernaut, hugged his wife, Eliana, into his side tighter. “So our brotherhood would be blessed by the duet of Eliana and Liliana.”
Eliana looked adoringly up at her husband before she winked at Lili. “I somehow don’t think fate conspired such a perfect match just so your brotherhood would have wives with rhyming names. Besides, I’m Ellie and she’s Lili.”
“No.”
“No.”
Both Antonio and Rafael spoke in unison, each vehemently refusing his mate’s nickname.
Eliana sighed, giving Lili a we’re-in-this-together look. “You’re Liliana and never Lili to Antonio, right?”
Lili wiggled one eyebrow at Antonio. “Yeah, and he has exclusive rights to it. So y’all better call me Lili if you want to remain on your doctor’s good side.”
“It’s clear to me why Antonio is falling over himself to marry you.” That was Richard Graves. Not Antonio’s brother, but his partner, the one who smothered them all in security measures, who used to be Rafael’s handler. The Brit was the perfect combination of suave and grit, a Bond/Lancelot hybrid. His hand laced with Isabella’s, his wife and a surgeon herself, his body touching hers from shoulder to calf, as if he couldn’t be away from her. It was weird, since the guy looked as cold as a cobra. “You’re a combination I didn’t think existed, but exactly what would bowl him over. You must have mowed him down without even trying.”
“That she did.” Antonio laughed, looking down at her adoringly. “I’m down for the count. For life.”
“That’s what you guys do. Even those who resist their fate for years.” Isabella pinched Richard, who growled and buried a kiss in her neck. She giggled, looking at Lili. “When they give in and give you their hearts, it’s yours forever. They’d conquer the world for you, live and die for you. They’re a bit scary, but each of them is one-of-a-kind and we can’t think how we lived before them.”
Richard squeezed his wife tighter as the other women fervently corroborated her statements and their husbands hugged them closer, too.
Lili looked up at Antonio, as usual finding his heart in his eyes, the heart he said he’d grown to love her with.
Pulling him down, she murmured against his lips, “I have no idea at all how.”
She surfaced from his drowning kiss to the hoots and claps of the couples, and the disgusted groans of Jakob Wolff, the guy who looked like a Viking marauder, and the only single brother around.
Antonio had just told them about his proposal last night. The ladies had insisted on meeting her at once, and the men had made their wishes come true without delay. They’d all converged on LA from wherever they’d been in the world, arriving at Antonio’s mansion one after the other. By the time they’d started arriving, Antonio had told her everything about their previous and current personas, and she’d memorized all the info.
The only one who was missing was Ivan Konstantinov, Antonio’s best friend. But he certainly wouldn’t have left the side of the woman Antonio had saved that first night she and Antonio were together. Antonio had told her they were missing another brother, but that she wouldn’t be seeing him. He’d left their brotherhood
six years ago, vowing never to return. It seemed it had been an unspeakable falling-out, since Antonio, who’d so far shared the most horrendous stuff with her, wouldn’t say a word about why “Cypher” had left them.
Antonio had wanted their wedding to be three days from now, a whopping week after he’d proposed. But she’d convinced him it was either forgo a wedding completely, or if he wanted an actual party, they needed at least a month. Adamant that there was no way he wasn’t giving her a wedding, and reluctant about what he called an unbearable delay, he’d succumbed and set the date.
The evening proceeded in escalating mirth and harmony. Those juggernauts—who between them could rule the world and did to a great degree—and their gorgeous mates promised to be available at all times to help with the wedding preparations. Lili was so delighted with them all, his “family”, she kept thanking him for rounding them up for this impromptu engagement party, and thanking them for coming and for being this fantastic.
Everything was so amazing it made her feel she’d plunged into another level of the fairy tale she’d been living with Antonio since that day he’d changed her life. And every now and then one incredulous question floated in her mind.
Could anything in this world be that perfect?
Nine
“My father called again yesterday.”
The razor in Antonio’s hand stilled over his left cheek. The eyes that had been promising her another session of devastation in the mirror, clean-shaven this time, emptied.
Next second he refocused on shaving, grunting something vague.
Her heart slumped a notch in her chest.
His reaction to the subject of her father and her family was the only thing that marred the perfection they’d been sharing so far.
Her father had been after her to set a date for that reception the Accardis wanted to hold in her honor. When he heard of her engagement, and to whom, his cajoling had become persistence. He couldn’t wait to meet her fiancé.
And she couldn’t wait for Antonio to meet him, too. Now that she’d been included in Antonio’s family, her reluctance to establish a relationship with her father and the Accardis had evaporated. She now wanted to attend the party in which she would meet her long-lost family.
But though Antonio was always eager to do everything with her or for her, joining her for that party wasn’t a foregone conclusion. As he’d just proven again.
She tried again. “He’s really eager to meet you, and he’s hoping I can give him a final answer about the Accardi reception.”
Next moment, her heart lodged in her throat. At the shocking burst of wrath and revulsion she saw reflected at her in his eyes.
He suppressed his reaction at once. But she’d seen it.
This was far worse than she’d first thought. It was like this lethal persona that lived within him had surged to the surface. And it had been positively murderous.
Feeling close to tears for thoughtlessly causing him this flare-up, she squeezed her eyes shut and turned to leave the bathroom. “Please, forget it. I shouldn’t have brought this up.”
“No.” She heard the razor clatter in the marble sink, and then the sound of his hurried, powerful footsteps a second before his hands clamped her shoulders and turned her to him. “Dio mio, mi amore, no. You should always tell me everything. Everything you want to do, anything on your mind. Always. I beg your forgiveness if I made you feel you can’t talk to me about this.”
A tear trickled down her cheek, inciting a vicious string of self-abusing expletives from him.
Furious with herself, she wiped it away, pointed at the moisture. “This is for you. I hate that I didn’t take a hint, cornered you into letting your anger surface. I know how you hate your harsh side, what it takes to curb it so perfectly, to maintain your inner peace. I hate that it’s only on my account that you can fall prey again to such aggressive emotions.”
Clad in only low-riding black silk pajama bottoms, he scooped her up in his arms, his erection lodging in her quivering belly. “Well, you’ll have to live with the fact that I would give up all the peace in existence for the savage emotions you inspire in me, along with the sublime ones. You’ll have to make your peace with the fact that I can happily kill for you, not only die for you.”
Melting in his hold as he swept her up and carried her to bed, she wrapped her legs around his waist. “Since I’d rather you live for me, thank you very much, let’s forget I brought up my father and my family. You probably think I’m stupid to consider accepting his advances. You must consider they more or less did to me what your family did to you.”
He started to speak, then clamped his lips. Because she’d put her finger on the truth and he wasn’t about to say she didn’t. He always told her the truth.
As he came to half lie over her, she cupped his cheek and reveled in his beauty, this god among men who desired her so completely, who was unbelievably hers. “I understand how your anger toward your family extends to mine, and it’s totally justified. I wouldn’t have considered being anywhere near my father or any of the Accardis on my own. But he’s been trying so hard, I wanted to give him a chance before I decide whether to have him in my life. I didn’t want unresolved bitterness lurking anywhere if I could work it out. The best I expected was that my family would be a once-a-year presence in my life, and my father would be a peripheral one.
“But that was before I realized how forcefully you feel about this. Nothing is worth making you suffer the least discomfort. You, and our lives together, are the only things that matter to me. I did mean it when I said let’s just forget about this.”
* * *
Antonio stared down at his woman, the woman he’d been falling deeper in love with each passing second.
Every time she’d mentioned her father and their joint family, his agitation had built. Though he now considered whatever debt they owed him paid a million times over just for being the reason he’d met Liliana, he abhorred their very existence. He never wanted to see any of them, not to punish them or to have anything to do with them. But the idea that they were trying to enter her life, when they were bound to taint it, made his loathing mount. He’d destroy them all before he let them cause her the least heartache.
But she needed closure and now, because she considered only him and his feelings, she was dismissing that need.
And there was no way he’d deprive her of anything at all. He’d swallow his hatred, hell, he’d swallow molten steel if it provided her with peace. On the off chance that her father and his family brought her a measure of contentment, he’d even tolerate them. He’d be there for her, with her, at every event, honoring her and showing them she had a lethal protector in him. Just in case any of them thought to show their true colors.
He gathered her closer, delighting in her feel, her love. “We’ll forget nothing. I’m going to meet your father, and we’re going to New York to meet your family.” Anxiety flared again in her reddened eyes. He caught her lips in a cherishing kiss, aborting her protest. “We’ll do everything that might provide you with even a remote possibility of well-being, always. And that, mi amore, is that.”
* * *
Flying to New York on Antonio’s private jet, Lili felt she’d plunged deeper into the parallel universe she’d stumbled into since the day he’d entered her life.
The Accardis had set the reception for the very next weekend, two days after Antonio had insisted they accept their invitation. The haste had to be her father’s doing, no doubt. But this meant that the first time Antonio met him would be at the reception.
All the way, Antonio had placated her worries about his aversion to her family. He assured her if she enjoyed knowing them, he’d be lenient and might even consider liking them. After all, she made him so happy he could forgive any past transgressions and afford to be magnanimous like her. That had reassured
her, until they entered the Accardi family mansion.
Now she felt something writhing inside him. Something dark and vicious.
Before she told him she would leave if he didn’t want to be here after all, her father came rushing toward them as soon as they crossed the mansion’s threshold.
In the seconds before he reached them, his smile as wide as humanly possible, Lili noticed something for the first time. Her father and Antonio looked alike. Apart from the size and age difference—Antonio was much bigger, and her father had wrinkles and silver hair—the two men shared the same bone structure and skin tone. If she’d seen them on the streets, she would have thought them relatives. In fact, if someone saw the three of them, with her looking like her mother, people would have thought it was Antonio who was her father’s son.
“Mia bella Lilianissima, you’re here!”
Feeling Antonio going rigid beside her, she stood with a wooden smile, awkwardly letting her father hug her.
Thankfully, he did so more briefly than in the few times she’d seen him. For now he had a distraction in Antonio.
“Dr. Balducci, a hundred welcomes to Casa Accardi.”
“One would do, Signore Accardi.” Antonio took her father’s extended hand after a telling hesitation, as if he loathed touching him. He still managed a courteous nod, for her sake.
Oblivious to Antonio’s aversion, her father enfolded Antonio’s hand in both of his fervently. “I’m beyond delighted about your and Lili’s engagement. Only the best man is worthy of her, and that’s what I hear you are. And an Italian, too. It’s just perfection. Everything is coming together in the exact perfect way that my incomparable daughter deserves.”
As if he’d reached his limit, Antonio withdrew his hand from her father’s grip. “Liliana is beyond incomparable, and deserves only the best of everything. Which I’ll make sure she gets, now and forever.”
Antonio’s words sounded like a warning. He was telling her father he’d better be on his best behavior with her, or else.
Her nerves jangled at Antonio’s barely veiled threat. Regardless of whether her father deserved it for his past behavior, she’d hoped her fiancé would offer him that leniency he’d talked about. It was clear Antonio wouldn’t offer any until her father proved himself. Which she was sure Antonio wouldn’t make easy.
