“That’s not how I want you. So, I’m giving you your freedom back, and all that you own. Your family’s inheritance, the business and assets now belong to you. It’s yours,” I say then hand her an envelope. One more envelope. This one holds good news. “That is a gift from me.”
She takes it and opens it. When she pulls the document out and reads through it, her whisky eyes fill with tears of the deepest gratitude.
“Massimo, this is an acceptance to the Accademia. You’re sending me to Florence?”
“Isn’t that where you were supposed to be? Emelia, you are an incredibly talented artist. I know you missed out on summer school and the first few weeks of the semester, but they’re cool with it. I got you covered for however long you want to be there and wherever you want to stay when you go to Florence. You just do what you want. Whatever that is…” I hold her gaze. As happy as she is, she knows by me saying so where my conversation is heading to. She knows what that means for us.
She presses down on her lips, and her cheeks flush.
“I’ve never been able to do what I want before.”
“Now you can. That means deciding whether or not you want to stay married to me.” I pull in a breath. “I’m a
mafia boss, and now I’m the syndicate. I still don’t know what that means yet. All I know right now is that when it comes to you and me, I’d start over again if I could. Take it back to nine months ago when I first saw you at the charity ball.”
“Would you?” she asks, and I nod. “What would you do?”
“I would ask you out, then date, and I’d ask you to marry me. I would write better vows for you.” I focus on her and gaze deep into her eyes so she can see I’m serious. Everything I say next I mean from the bottom of my heart, but she needs to feel it.
“I’d say something like this.” I pause. “’I, Massimo D’Agostino, take you, Emelia Balesteri, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times, in sickness and in health. I promise to protect you until the day I die. I will love and honor you all the days of my life and for all eternity because not even death can keep me away from you.’ That is what I would say to you. Because I love you. I would do everything properly because you deserve that.”
I truly mean that for her, whether or not she chooses me. We started things backwards.
I can declare her mine all I want, and to me she will always be.
But I want her to choose me.
Chapter Forty-Three
Emelia
I stare at the beautiful man before me and think of how far we’ve come and what we experienced together.
So much has happened in the handful of months we’ve known each other.
We lost our fathers and had terrible secrets revealed.
I can’t express how awful I feel when I think of how my father truly damaged him and took away the things that mattered most to him. Family. Both his parents were killed at the hand of my father. My father threw his mother off a cliff and shot his father dead.
And yet this man still has love for me.
We exist outside everything. He is it for me. There’s only one answer I can give him.
When I smile, he gives me a hopeful look.
“I, Emelia D’Agostino, take you, Massimo D’Agostino, to be my husband. I love you, and I’m staying with you. It means so much to me that you did this.” I hold up the letter from the Accademia. “You have no idea how much it means. I worked so hard to get in, and I’m so grateful for the chance to go. But more than that, I’m grateful for you. I want to be with you more than anything else. I promise to be true to you in good times, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.”
He reaches for me and slips me onto his lap, pressing his forehead to mine.
“You choose me?”
“I choose you, and everything that makes you, you.” That means I choose this life too.
“You are mine, Emelia D’Agostino.”
“I think we should go upstairs now.”
As usual, this man never fails to shock me.