He wanted to give her the world. Take away every bad memory she had and replace it with something good. She thought she was in little pieces, scattered on the ground. He’d heard her say that once when she’d torn up a photograph of herself Lucia had taken. She’d been crying and she’d called herself trash. She’d burned the image and placed the ashes of the picture in the trash can “where she belonged.” He’d hated that. Now he couldn’t even give her a proper proposal because she left him without words. But she liked the ring. He saw that on her face. It was a flawless dark indigo blue diamond. Like his eyes. The stone had a lush elegance to it. He could have passed it off as a sapphire with its fiery sheen, but the cushion-cut diamond, set in a platinum band, was too rare and beautiful to be compared with anything on the market. She would be unable to wear the engagement ring in the shadows, but the wedding band was made of a special alloy she would always keep on her finger.
“Taviano.” She barely breathed his name.
“Say yes.”
“I can’t wear that.”
He took it out of the box and pushed it onto her finger. It slid on easily, just the way he knew it would. Damian had a way of knowing, without ever meeting the woman who would wear the ring. The stone looked perfect against her skin. She looked down at her hand and then up at his face.
“You need to say yes, tesoro,” he coaxed.
“I said yes, but I’ll say it again. Yes, but—”
He leaned in and brushed a kiss across her lips to stop whatever she was about to say. Yes was just fine with him. He knew she was afraid she wasn’t going to be good enough. He knew she would be. He had his own secrets. His own past. He was no saint. She’d have to live with that.
He took her hand and pressed a kiss over the ring. “Franco just said we’re going to be landing. Let’s do this, and then we’ll face Stefano.” He hesitated. “One more thing. The wedding band stays on your finger. This comes off before we take to the shadows, so in an emergency, if you’re wearing it, you’ll have to get rid of it.”
She shook her head. “Taviano. No.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to think of plans just in case, but you have to keep that in the back of your mind.”
She pressed her other hand over the ring. “Maybe the ring is magic, and it will protect us. It feels as if it could be.”
“Let’s hope so.”CHAPTER SIXWhat the hell were you thinking, Taviano?” Stefano snapped, glaring at his youngest brother. “You could have killed her. Instead of sitting on the couch with you right now, you could be carrying her out of a tube in your arms dead.”
It was easy enough to see that the head of the Ferraro family was furious. Nicoletta curled closer into Taviano, uncertain whether she was doing so in order to protect him or have him protect her. She had seen Stefano angry, but never like this. His rage radiated throughout the room—not just the room, it filled the entire penthouse apartment. She was afraid even that gigantic space couldn’t possibly contain the fierce emotion and it would leak downstairs and affect the people staying in the Ferraro Hotel.
Taviano glanced down at her the moment she moved into his rib cage, and his arm dropped from the back of the couch to her shoulders. The heat from his body seeped into the cold of hers. He had a way of always calming her when she wanted to run. He didn’t seem that affected by his brother’s wrath, not the way she was. She wanted to find one of the shadows and try to hide herself, even knowing the toll it would take on her. That made her feel like a coward, but she didn’t like raised voices—especially men’s raised voices.
“He’s not angry with you, piccola,” Taviano explained, his voice gentle. He dipped his head so his lips were close to her ear. “Our brother Ettore didn’t make it out of the shadows. It was Stefano who found him. He has every right to be angry with me. The risk was very real.”
“But I’d done it before.” Nicoletta lifted her head, forcing herself to meet the fury in Stefano’s eyes.
It was difficult to be surrounded by all of the Ferraro brothers at once. Even though the room was very spacious and extremely luxurious, warm with Francesca’s homey touches, having all of Taviano’s brothers around her took discipline not to panic. She knew being in close proximity with too many men was still a trigger for her. She’d discussed it often with the counselor, and how she could best handle that and hopefully overcome it.