“I’ll be anything you want me to be.” He snaked his arms around my waist and leaned his forehead against mine.
“I just want you to be you. You, the man I’m in love with. And the father of our future twelve Italian bambinos.”
He pushed his lips together in the way he did when he tried not to smile.
I slid my arms around his neck and he pressed a kiss to my mouth.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. “Too much. And now I’m impatient to get started on what’s next. What time are you going to finish work this evening? Shall I come to you and help you pack? I need to call Dexter. I bet he already has a selection of rings put aside.”
This guy was travelling at warp speed.
I moved his chin so he was looking at me. “Andrew, you are usually so patient about everything. This time, you might have to be a little patient with me. It’s been just me and my mom for a long time. I’ve learned to rely on no one but myself and her. I’m still strapping on my training wheels, and you’re entering me into Olympic time trials.”
“I’m sorry. You’re not alone on those training wheels. I’ve never lived with a woman. I don’t know how to compromise. I’m blunt and surly and used to getting what I want, when and exactly how I want it.”
“You are?” I feigned a shocked face.
He grinned. “But you love me anyway.”
“I do.”
“Then we’ll figure it out.”
“I know we will.”
Andrew kissed me again, and neither of us said anything for a long time.
Forty-Two
Andrew
I glanced up at the window to the bedroom of Sofia’s flat before pressing the bell. I wanted to skip this bit and just be married. We’d only officially been a couple for a few hours, but I was the luckiest man alive and I didn’t want to waste time. I didn’t want to take things slow for the sake of it. I’d tried to persuade Sofia to ditch work for the day but she’d refused. Why did she have to be so bloody professional?
She poked her head around the door as I got to the top of the steps. “You’re early,” she said.
“Where do you want to live?” I asked, following her into the sitting room. She was fiddling with an envelope.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. My mom is . . . I miss her.”
I’d already done a bit of thinking about Sofia’s mother this afternoon. “I think we have several options. She can come and live over here full or part time. We get her her own place, so she can come and go as she pleases.”
“Wait—”
“Nothing needs to be decided right away.” I needed to be more patient or I was really going to piss her off.
“What is this?” she asked, scanning the piece of paper she had just retrieved from the envelope she’d been playing with. “Did you do this?”
I shifted to look over her shoulder. “Student loans? What’s the problem?”
“My account has been cleared. They’ve all been paid off.” She turned and looked at me.
“Nothing to do with me,” I said. “I didn’t even know you had student loans.”
She handed me the letter. “Maybe I got it wrong. Will you read it? Tell me I’m not going crazy.”
I took the paper from her and read through it. “It shows that the balance was paid off ten days ago.”
“Ten days ago? How? It’s over a hundred thousand dollars. Oh God, do you think it was—no, it can’t have been.”
“Your father?”
“Who else? But he hasn’t said anything.”
“He doesn’t need to. It was his job to pay that money. He’s a wealthy man.”
“How ironic that I was going to pretend I needed help paying off those loans to get money for my mom’s operation, but he’s paid off far more than I ever needed, and I never asked him for a cent. I should be able to get a personal loan now for the surgery. I don’t think I’ll need that advance anymore, or certainly not all of it.” She turned to me. “Can you believe it? My mom is going to get her operation and I didn’t have to ask my father to pay for it.”
“You’re not going to get a loan. We have plenty of money to cover the operation. I don’t think you’re getting it. Whatever I have is ours. Whatever you need, I will provide.” Sofia provoked some kind of primal need in me to provide for her. To care for her. To make the world a better place for her. I’d grown up among powerful women, but Sofia’s power over me was on a different scale. I would do whatever it took to make her happy. “You’ll never want for anything ever again for as long as I’m alive.”