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He stood as still as a sentinel for what felt like the longest time, but was in fact probably only a minute—or barely a minute—and then, put his hand on the small of her back, guiding her across the lounge room, towards a sofa. “Sit.”

There was a command in his voice and she naturally bristled against it. Yet his concern was obvious, and when she looked at his beautiful face and saw what her brother had done to it, how could she argue? How could she argue with the way he was looking at her, like she was made of the most fragile of glass, and wanted to keep her permanently safe? What was that if not an admission of love?

When she was perched on the edge of the sofa, he crouched at her feet, between her legs, his eyes latched to hers, hands resting on her knees. “We have to end this.”

Not only was it the last thing she expected him to say, it was the last thing she could bear to hear. She shook her head slowly in an instantaneous rejection of that. “Absolutely not.”

“Listen to me.” His voice though, with that quiet, natural authority, rode over the top of hers. “Your brother made it very clear that in choosing me—this—you will lose your family. Do you think there is any way on earth I would allow that to happen?”

“It won’t happen,” she said, firmly.

“You didn’t see him at the hospital.”

She frowned. “He was angry.”

“And he will continue to be angry,” he insisted.

“I get that. It’s not going to be easy, but as he gets to know you, he’ll see?—,”

“He won’t. None of them will. If you don’t end this, and tell your brother it’s over, he is going to make sure you’re pushed out of your family.”

“You don’t know Leo.”

“I know men like him. Hell, I am a man like him. I saw the determination in his eyes, and I understood it. He meant every word he said to me, Emilia.”

He was probably right. But as she looked at the man she loved, she felt a swelling in her chest, as their whole future unfurled inside of her. The future she’d wanted all her life, and hadn’t known she’d ever be blessed enough to receive. “I’m willing to take that risk.”

He pulled back a little, his expression impossible to read, but it was clear those words were filtering through his brain, that he was thinking about them, trying to make sense of them. “I won’t let you.”

“You won’t let me?”

He shook his head once. “This isn’t worth it.”

The words were hard to comprehend at first. She knew they landed with a thud, that she didn’t like them, but it took her a few moments of letting them replay over and over in her mind before she really understood what he was saying.

“You meanwe’renot worth it. You mean this isn’t worth fighting for?”

He glanced beyond her. “We both know there’s no future here.”

“Do we?”

“We’ve agreed that all along.”

“Yeah, but?—,”

He pressed his finger to her lips. “There is no ‘but’. Nothing’s changed. Your family is?—,”

“Everything’s changed,” she contradicted ferociously. “Once upon a time you were just Salvatore Santoro. I mean, we obviously had a connection, but I genuinely thought it was just sex, at first.”

His eyes bore through hers with the intensity of his gaze.

“But it’s so much more,” she finished softly, almost in a whisper. “Don’t deny that you feel it, too.”

He was quiet for such a long time that her heart began to splinter in the most painful of ways. She leaned forward, running her fingers over his bruised cheek. “Salvatore?”

His Adam’s apple shifted as he swallowed. Ice flooded her veins.

“Obviously it’s more than sex,” he said, finally. “I’ve told you—you’re so different. So—special,cara.The other night, seeing you at the bottom of the stairs, I couldn’t?—,”