Page 24

She gives a small nod and follows me without a word. I lead the way, every step feeling heavier than it should. Inside, I close the door quietly behind us. For a second, we just stand there.

I walk to my desk and open the drawer, pulling out the folder I’ve been holding onto for days. It’s not thick, just a few pages, but what it represents is heavy as hell. More than paper. It’s trust. A gesture I hope she’ll understand.

I set it in front of her with deliberate care.

She glances down, then back up at me. “What is this?”

“Legal paperwork,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

She opens it and flicks through a few pages, her brows knitting tighter with each one. Then she stops, her fingers still on the edge of the paper. “I don’t understand,” she murmurs. “I thought you already named me their guardian… if something happened to you.”

“I did.” I nod. “But I want to take it a step further. You already love them like they’re yours. Let’s make it official. Adopt them.”

Her movements slow. She closes the folder carefully and lays it back on the desk like it might break.

And then she says it, quietly but firm. “No.”

The word lands like a slap.

My hands curl into fists before I can stop them. “No?”

She lifts her chin. “I can’t sign that.”

I feel the rejection slice clean through my chest. “I thought you loved them. Like they were yours. ”

“I do.” Her voice wavers, and something in me grabs at that weakness, needing her to explain, to fix what she just broke. “Mine… or yours.”

I hear it before I understand it. And when I do, it lands like a punch to the gut.

“Oh, I see.” My voice is sharp. Cold. “But not ours .”

She looks at me, and I know she hears the bitterness in my tone. I don’t care. I’m furious and ashamed at the same time because I thought this one thing was safe between us.

But no. Even this has conditions.

And the worst part? I don’t even know if I’m angry at her or at myself for expecting more.

I let the silence hang between us for a beat before I speak again. “Is it true what you told your father? That you can’t have children?”

She flinches almost imperceptibly. “Does it matter?” Her tone is calm. Flat. Dangerous. “You already made it very clear you wouldn’t give me children.”

“I remember.” I pause, dragging my eyes down the line of her body before I can stop myself. “But would you want me to?”

There’s a flicker in her expression too brief to name. She folds her arms across her chest like a shield.

“That’s not part of our agreement.”

I grit my teeth. Of course she hides behind the contract, the one she begged to be bound by. The one the angry version of myself thought was smart.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” I say through my teeth. “I’m asking if I fuck you raw every night for a year, will we make a child? ”

Her expression doesn’t change, but the pulse at her throat jumps.

She thinks for a second too long. Then she shakes her head. “It’s very unlikely.”

That should ease something in me, except it doesn’t.

Because now all I can think about is the curve of her belly full with my child. The softness in her eyes when she looks at the twins but also aimed at someone we made.

My cock twitches at the thought, and I hate myself for it.

She’s standing right there, composed, unshaken, already pulling away emotionally like she always does, and I’m the one left feeling raw. Cornered. Wanting .

And somehow, I’m the one who made it this way.

I take a step toward her. Then another.

“Is that why he sold you to the enemy?” I ask, my voice low and rough.

“ Sold me ?” She lets out a dry laugh, brittle as cracked glass. “I don’t remember having a choice.”

“He sent you here like cannon fodder,” I press. “He knew what I’d do if I found out.”

“And I knew it too,” she says simply. “But I also knew women in any famiglia are disposable the moment we stop being useful.”

I flinch because she’s right, and I hate that she is.

“Then why did you do it?” My voice is quieter now. Honest. “Why come here at all?”

She shrugs. And fuck, I hate that shrug, that hollow, dismissive gesture she uses to bury what she doesn’t want to feel .

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It matters to me.”

Her eyes finally flick to mine, but they are flat and guarded. “Why?”

I don’t have an answer. Not one that makes sense. So instead, I move.

I step into her space, one hand rising to the back of her neck as instinct takes over, and then I kiss her.

No warning. No permission. Just heat and need and months of rage and longing pouring into her mouth like a fire I can’t put out.

At first, she freezes. Her hands stay limp at her sides. And just as I start to pull back, my heart pounding in my chest like I’ve overstepped again, suddenly she moves, stands on her toes, and grabs my face.

And then she kisses me. Harder. Deeper. Like she’s starved for it.

Her fingers twist in my collar. My hands anchor to her hips. The kiss turns fierce, hungry, messy—a collision of pain and want and all the words we never said.

I taste the fight in her. The defiance. The heartbreak.

And underneath it all, the terrifying, fragile truth we’ve both been trying to outrun.

This isn’t about punishment or power anymore, and it hasn’t been for a while.

This is us, what I want, the future I can glimpse.

When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard. Her lips are red, and my hands are shaking.

She stares at me like she doesn’t know whether to slap me or kiss me again.

“Now that,” I murmur, my thumb brushing the corner of her mouth, “ was trying.”