Page 142 of Kiss Me Like I Didn't Kill You

“Ophelia.” I reach up, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “We don’t have to share a bed or do anything you’re not comfortable with.” I pause. “I don’t want you to think I’m forcing you to move in with me, but I also won’t give your father the chance to imagine you’re not mine, or that he can marry you off to whoever he sees fit. So yes, we will live together. We’re engaged, and we will marry. Even if you never forgive me, so be it. But I’m a greedy man, and I’ll make certain you do. You’ll crave my touch again, beg for my lips, for what only I can give you.”

She lets out a breath, still staring at the key. “I can’t believe you gifted me an entire house for Christmas, and I haven’t even given you anything.”

I smile faintly, leaning closer. “But you have.”

Her brows knit together. “What?”

“You,” I say simply. “You’re all I ever wanted, you’re all I’ll ever need.”

Chapter 51

Arlo

When we return, everyone is already waiting.

Ophelia enters first, her back straight, chin lifted, every inch the poised daughter of a Bellanti.

I fall into step behind her, my hand settling lightly at the small of her back. It’s a simple gesture, almost nothing at all, yet it feels perilously good, like reclaiming a part of myself I’ve been starved of for far too long.

She doesn’t know that I never really left the hospital that day. She thought I walked away.

I didn’t.

There isn’t a force on earth that could have made me leave her, not when she was lying there, pale and fragile after surgery.

I remained in that hospital for as long as she did. I had a live feed from her room streamed straight to my phone and watched from the end of the corridor.

I made certain the nurses attended to her every need, even the smallest things.

The only time I allowed myself near her was when she slept. Then I would slip inside, sit beside her bed, and let my fingers trace the outline of her hand.

And I’d leave the moment she began to stir.

Because she’d asked me to.

And I had to respect that, even when it felt like carving out my own lungs just to do it.

Now she’s here, standing in front of me, so achingly alive it almost hurts to look at her.

Her father, Luigi, casts her a look from across the room, but the moment his eyes find me standing behind her, his expression shifts.

He clears his throat. “Now that the happy couple has deigned to join us, shall we sit down to dinner?”

Ophelia simply inclines her head.

We take our seats. I pull out her chair, guiding her in before taking my place beside her. It’s expected, given the engagement, but for me it’s more than courtesy, it’s instinct.

She belongs at my side.

Dinner unfolds smoothly. Her father tries to send her warning looks across the table, but one glance from me is enough to silence him.

The rest of the evening passes almost pleasantly. Even Lucinda seems lighter somehow, freed for once from her husband’s shadow.

My father sits on my other side.

We’ve somehow mended what was broken between us.

That day in the hospital, we talked. And after that, he began visiting Ophelia. We spoke about everything, my twin, my mother, all the things we’d spent years avoiding.