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At the last moment, Tate turns his rifle on me, meaning to kill me. Someone throws themself on me and sends me flying to the ground, then covers my body, protecting me from stray bullets. The man effectively saves my life. When he didn’t have to. He had, after all, been part of Tate’s crazy team that had taken on one of Seattle’s most powerful men.

Dante was mad I hadn’t listened and stayed in the car. He’d asked me to do one thing – one thing, he reminded me – and even that I couldn’t get right.

“I can’t believe you set that whole thing up,” I tell him, as we settle into the couch that night after his father has left us.

“It was the only thing that would flush Tate out of hiding,” he tells me. “Knowing that we were on our own without security. I just planted the seed and he ran with it. It helped that I was able to turn Ford.”

“That was a big leap of faith, placing your trust in him.”

“I just offered him a way out of the disaster he found himself in after aligning with Tate.”

“So what will happen now?”

“Well, Tate’s gone. The score has been settled with the mercenaries. Ford made good on his promise to give me Tate, so he gets the bounty.”

“Do we have anything else to worry about, Dante?”

He reaches out a hand and curls a strand of my hair behind my ear before he kisses me. There’s nothing more precious than these moments we spend together alone.

“The only thing we have to be worried about is how quick we get married,” he tells me, running his hand down my arm.

* * *

“Anderson’s on board,”Stella tells me, coming into my office. I throw my pen down and huff in resignation. Stella took Clay’s plane and got her ass over to me as soon as she heard about the altercation with Tate. She’s been indispensable in the days since she arrived, and I love having her around.

“Finally, something’s looking up,” I tell her. With Dante’s blessing, I had Stella do the background checks on the man who had thrown his body over mine when Tate ambushed us. Anderson McAndrews is ex M15, an experienced bodyguard and covert operations strategist. Dante has already told me we’ll be hiring new staff – Anderson is my pick for the courage he showed when Tate pointed his gun my way, even knowing that he wasn’t employed by me. And now he’s accepted the job as my chief security analyst and personal bodyguard, which makes any future endeavors I’ve planned that much easier knowing that I’m in safe hands.

“How are the wedding plans coming along?” she asks, her eyes gleaming. No one is happier about my wedding than Stella.

“I couldn’t do it. I’ve hired a wedding planner.”

“You’ve only got a couple of dozen guests. We could have managed together,” she balks.

I shake my head and tell her everything’s been so overwhelming and I’ve been too distracted to concentrate on the intricate details of planning a wedding.

“I do need your input on my dress, though,” and she lights up like a child at Christmas receiving their first toy.

“Now, that I can help you with,” she winks.

* * *

Durian walksme down the aisle. Most would think it odd that my father-in-law does the honours, but in truth, there is no one I would rather have than Durian in the absence of my father. I even saw a tear in his eyes when he knocked on my dressing room door and offered me his arm.

“I know you make my son happy,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I hope you two continue to make each other happy, and with the passing of the years and new additions to your family, I wish you only health, wealth and happiness.”

He walks me down the aisle to a waiting Dante, who has Marco standing by his side as his best man. Dante looks handsome in his three piece suit, a gorgeous dark grey with a navy tie and his hair parted to the side. He is more handsome than the day I met him. He still sports his 5 o’clock shadow, which nestles perfectly against his chiseled cheeks. His dark hair and whisky eyes still mesmerize and make me weak at the knees.

We say our vows, then Dante bends me over and presses his lips to mine in a kiss that could be considered anything but chaste. It is a kiss which has the attendees in an uproar as they scream for an encore presentation. He lifts me and we both laugh at our audience, before he pulls me into his side and addresses me for the first time as his wife.

The word trickles up and down my arms, trailing goosebumps in its wake. I feel everything that is young and new and beautiful in his presence, and I know, with everything in me, that Dante is my forever. He is the man I’d run to and the one I’d wake up next to. The one that makes me breathless and insane, the one who has made his mark against my heart and would continue to do so for the rest of our lives.

* * *

“You look beautiful, wifey.”

Dante’s eyes are shining in a way I’ve never seen. He smoothes his hands down over the lace that covers my arms, looking down at the dress hugging my body like a second skin. When he turns me around, in the privacy of our suite, he gives a low whistle as his hand travels the length of my bare back. The dress, cut low in the back, exposes so much skin, Dante says it should be a felony to wear anything so revealing. He unbuttons the two pearl buttons at the back of my neck, then the few buttons at my lower back, until the dress slides down my body and pools in a lacy bundle at my feet. I step out of the dress and he turns me to face him, looking at me as though it is the first time he is seeing me. Dante never ceases to amaze me with the way he is around me. Each and every time is like the first time.

He removes my white bra and throws it across the room, then drops to his haunches and slides my panties ever so slowly down my long tan legs. He places his face between my legs, inhaling my scent, then stands and lifts me from the ground into his arms. He carries me to the bed and lays me down, looking at me for the longest time, his eyes coveting every inch of my body, before he climbs onto the bed and holds me in his arms, trailing my face with kisses.

“Today marks the rest of our lives together,” he whispers near my ear, sending goosebumps up and down my spine. “Today, tomorrow, and forever,” he promises me.

We almost didn’t make it.

My mind travels back to the first time I saw him, between the smokey haze of the air in the Udder when he watched me from across the room. I remember the way he appeared, seemingly out of nowhere when I was attacked by a nasty biker. And then all the attacks that came afterward. I nearly lost him. He nearly lost me. We nearly lost each other. And I realise I don’t know a life without him, and I never want to know what that’s like. If I live to be a hundred and one, I hope I die before him because I never want to know what it’s like to live a life without him.

* * *