“Sweetheart, I get that you just saw Enzo die. But he was young and foolhardy, two things I am not. I don’t let fear control me, and I don’t make rash decisions. If I did, Niccolo would be dead right now. Because believe me, I wanted to kill that bastard today.”
For just an instant I see my father lying in his own blood, and the certainty that Kayden had found his fiancée and his mentor in the same condition has me shivering. Kayden notices, too; of course he notices. He’s somehow always aware of what I’m feeling, even when I’m not. He straightens and reaches for the blanket at the back of the couch that I know he intends for me. I take that moment of freedom and scoot to a sitting position, snatching up the tissues he’d given me and tossing them behind me, because already Kayden is wrapping the blanket around my shoulders. And while I am now covered, I am aware of every inch of his naked, muscular body. And when he holds onto the edges of the cloth, and those blue eyes, a shade paler now, capture mine, I can’t breathe.
“Ella,” he says, breathing out my name, compelling me to accept his proposal.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you can’t live without me.”
“Stop making me feel that way and I will.”
“What if I do? What if I stop making you feel that way?”
“Impossible,” he assures me, “which is why you’re marrying me. The end. We’re going to find an insanely expensive ring, and we’ll marry when and how you want. If you want your friend Sara there, we’ll have her there. If you don’t—”
“You can’t just tell me I’m marrying you.”
“Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to share the rest of—”
“Yes,” I say. “I do, Kayden. Very much, but—”
“Do you want to marry me?”
“That’s not the issue. That’s not even a question.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I love you. But Kayden—”
“No but. You want to marry me. I want to marry you. We’re getting married.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s as simple as we make it, sweetheart.” His cell phone rings, his jaw clenching in response before he tightens his grip on the blanket and uses it to pull me closer, kissing me hard on the lips before he releases me.
He stands up and it’s all I can do to not pull him back, reminding myself that this call could be news that we’re waiting for about any number of things. Instead, I find myself once again staring at his gorgeous backside, a reminder that it could be mine to admire the rest of my life. And I want it to be. I want him to be.
But I don’t just remember my father on that floor. I remember my mother collapsing at the funeral. I remember tears and torment, and the bastard of a drunken man she settled for, as if to punish herself for something I didn’t understand and never will. I loved my father, but there was a reason he trained me. He knew that one day he could put us in danger. Yet he didn’t stay away. He should have stayed away, even for his own sake. Maybe then he’d have been less distracted, and more ready for an attack—like Kayden will be without me.
I inhale on that hard-to-swallow reality, watching Kayden fish the phone out of his pants pocket and glance at the screen before answering the call. “Yes, Adriel,” he says, and I know this is to let me know who is on the line. It’s a respect I appreciate, one he gives me often. But he is still The Hawk, still dominant in every way, and when he’s passionate about something, he’s a stubborn force to be reckoned with. And he’s clearly passionate about the topics of marriage and Paris.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he says, listening to whatever is being said to him and reaching for his pants again, while I catch the blanket before it slides away, the tape on my arm catching on the cloth.
I reach up, yanking what’s left of it free, and in the process, my gaze catches on my new tattoo. I reach out and trace the pink wings of the hawk, and the truth is, I am already Kayden’s wife to everyone who knows him as The Hawk. I know this. I also know that together, we made this choice and declared our bond. But Kayden felt pressured to protect me, while I . . . I love him. It really isn’t a question for me, so why am I hesitating to marry him now?
Suddenly Kayden is sitting in front of me, his pants now on, his hand going to the back of my tattooed wrist and pulling it between us. “Wearing the bracelet to the party and getting this tattoo protects you, like I always will.”
“I realize that, and I appreciate that you did this for me.”
“I did this for us, Ella, and under different circumstances those things would have been choices, a commitment to me and us, to this life, but I realize that you really didn’t have that option with Niccolo looking for you. Marrying me—that is a choice. It’s you saying you want to spend the rest of your life with me.”
And there it is. The reason I’m hesitating. I don’t want to make the same mistakes my father made.
“Instead, you’re doing what you said you don’t do,” he accuses softly.
“Which is what?”
“Running.”
My defenses prickle. “I’m right here. I’m not running.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m the one who wants to go to Paris.”