Page 196 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

Loving Dante was so new, and my life so utterly different than anything it had ever been before. Quite honestly, I hadn’t thought about what my siblings might think about our relationship.

The reality doused me with cold water. I could feel my bones seize up as my thoughts went arctic, how I sat differently in Dante’s hold, like he was keeping me captive instead of holding me up. Sensing the change, Dante let me down slowly, inch by inch against his body until I was on my feet but flush against him. He kept me there with a hand anchored over my lower back, his hand reaching all the way around my waist, his fingers curled over the opposite hip.

“This is Napoli. Trespassing could get you killed,” Dante said in an oddly mechanical voice, all tone and no subtext. “We have a sharpshooter here that could take your earlobes clean off.”

Cosima’s eyes danced as she moved closer, rounding Alexander without admonishing him for being stupidly protective. “I am rather attached to my earlobes. Still, I have it on good authority that I’m welcome atVilla Rosa.”

Dante arched an eyebrow and regarded her coolly. It took me a moment to realize he was channeling his brother, who was affecting the same posture behind Cosima. I laughed a little, then coughed to cover it up.

“What makes you think that?” Dante asked.

“Well, for one, the house happens to be named after my mother,” she said with a light laugh, her eyes fixed on Dante so she didn’t catch my frown. “And for another, my best friend and sister happen to be here. Obviously…heretogether.”

“I’m not asking you for permission if that’s what you’re insinuating,” he countered dryly.

I realized I was holding my breath, that the reason for my tension was the possibility of Cosima’s disapproval and censure. I’d had both before, when I hadn’t handled Daniel and Giselle’s affair as gracefully as I should have, and the memory of her criticism still plagued me.

“I suppose I didn’t ask you for permission to date Xan,” she agreed easily. “But a phone call announcing the relationship might have been nice. Especially because I had to read in the newspaper that you’d fled the country, D.”

We both winced a little. Dante looked down at me then, smiling this little smile that was only for me, more of a secret tucked between his curled lips than an actual expression.

“We’ve been busy,” he admitted, his voice soft, intimate as he looked down at me and pushed a lock of errant red hair behind my ear.

I got caught in those obsidian eyes, drowning in the words he’d written in black ink on black paper so only I could read them as close to him as I was.

He wasn’t going to give Cosima a chance to judge us. He was telling her in his own way that we were together. That he loved her, but there was a boundary between them now there hadn’t been before, a line drawn in the sand with my name on it.

It was possessive and bullying and bold; all things Dante could be so it didn’t surprise me because it wasn’t out of character.

But what did surprise me was how much that meant to me.

That he didn’t care what his best friend thought because he loved me too much to change his mind now.

Thatshewas somehow trespassing on an intimate moment between us instead of me being the third wheel in a relationship that had begun years ago and been through so much.

That he impliedwewere busy, meaning whatever he was doing, I was doing it with him. We were a team, and he was broadcasting that so loudly to Alexander and Cosima it seemed blared from a loudspeaker.

“Io sono con te,” he said so softly, lips barely moving, that for a second, I wondered if I imagined it.

But no.

I am with you, he’d said.

A reminder. An affirmation that even with his brother and best friend, he still wanted me to come first.

Tears burned the backs of my eyes, hot as the blowtorch Dante had used on Umberto Arno. I didn’t let them fall, but I couldn’t evaporate them either. So I stared at Dante with glazed eyes and swallowed down a sob.

“Ion sono con te,” I repeated quietly.

The fingers on my hip gave a squeeze.

When I looked back at Cosima, she seemed a little thunderstruck by our connection, but she wasn’t angry. When she caught my gaze, those yellow eyes melted like butter in a hot skillet.

“Lena, my love,” she said, extending her hand. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Those tears I’d been fighting so valiantly to keep at bay surged over my lower lids and fell down my cheeks in two scalding trails.

“Cosima,” I breathed as I broke from Dante and stepped forward.