Page 39 of Damon

Or acknowledge what happened but frame it as a one-time thing. Stress relief, proximity, whatever excuse makes it easier to live with. Keep things physical but don't let it get complicated.

The last option is to admit that this changed something fundamental and deal with whatever comes next. Which is off the table. Has to be. Because admitting this meant anything will end in my certain death and possibly her too.

Which leaves the first two options.

And option one feels impossible when she's lying here naked in my bed, smelling like sex and my cologne, looking like she belongs here.

So, option two it is. Keep it physical. Don't make it mean more than it needs to mean. Enjoy what we have while we have it, and then let her go when the time comes.

No matter how hard that might be.

Viviana shifts in her sleep, and her hand slides across my abs, fingers curling against my skin like she's anchoring herself to me. The gesture is unconscious, innocent, but it sends a jolt of possessiveness through me that's anything but innocent.

Mine, some primitive part of my brain insists.

I too her first which makes her only mine.

Now and forever.

I push the thought away, but it keeps coming back, stronger each time.

Because the truth is, regardless of what I tell myself about keeping this simple, about not letting it mean anything, Viviana Bonacci is under my skin now in a way that has nothing to do with physical attraction and everything to do with the fact that she trusted me with something precious.

Something she can never get back.

And I took it without even realizing what I was taking.

The guilt of that is going to eat me alive. But not as much as the thought of giving her up.

Which means I'm well and truly fucked.

Because there's no scenario where this ends well. No scenario where I get to keep her without destroying everythingelse in my life. No scenario where loving Roberto Bonacci's daughter doesn't end with me dead or exiled or worse.

But lying here in the dark, with her warm weight against my side, I'm starting to think it might be worth it anyway.

And that terrifies me more than any threat her father could make.

Because I've never wanted anything enough to risk everything for it.

Until now.

My phone buzzes again. Another text, this time from my cousin Timo:Heard the meeting went well. The girl giving you any trouble?

I look down at Viviana, at the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks, at the small smile playing at the corners of her mouth like she's having good dreams.

No trouble,I text back.

But as I hit send, I know I'm lying.

She's not giving me trouble.

She’s the fucking definition of trouble.

The kind of trouble that changes everything, whether you want it to or not.

The kind of trouble that makes a man forget who he's supposed to be and start thinking about who he could become instead.

And I'm not sure I'm strong enough to resist that kind of trouble.