EPILOGUE
Four Years Later
Aria
Sicily
I’min the most beautiful place on earth.
And not just because this was where I married the love of my life five years ago. Or where our beautiful son, Luca, was born.
Although both those things make it extra special.
I don’t know if it’s the people, or the air, or the distant majesty of Mount Etna rumbling away, threatening violence. Much like the way my husband threatened and delivered violence against his brother that day in San Diego.
It’s weird and a little twisted, but I think I fell in love, truly, madly, deeply in love when I watched him almost beat his brother to death because he almost shot me.
I’m a little sick in the head for replaying that moment over and over in my head, normally when I’m watching my husband cross the room to me.
Or driving a car.
Or eating breakfast.
Hell, every damn time.
I’ve never confessed that sick little thrill but I know he’d rather I didn’t think of him as a man who would break jaws and noses for me.
But I do.
I love every facet of my man, even the ones he desperately tried to shirk because he believed putting that part of his life behind him will make him a better man for me.
That’s ninety-nine percent true.
I love our lives and the family we’re growing.
Giovanni and I made our peace, and are even approaching a guarded friendship.
And these days, Matteo Frenelli is a very successful real-estate mogul.
But every now and then, like right now when I’m spying on him as he takes a meeting with a group of hard-looking gangsters who keep nodding their heads reverently at him, it’s clear who’s the boss. Who really runs the Frenellifamigghia.
And when he delivers his speech in rapid-fire Sicilian, complete with expressive hand gestures?
I moan as I slip my hand beneath the hem of my floaty sundress and rub my fingers over my clit.
My husband’s hotness should be a sin.
Or at least a taxable luxury item.
I’d hand over every cent I own just to gaze upon his deliciousness.
But I smile a very smug smile now because he’s mine.
All. Mine.
I gasp when my blood heats and my core gushes with fresh arousal as Matteo slams his hand on the table, making grown men jump.
Leaning my head against the cool shutter I’m half concealed behind, I finger myself some more, desperate for him to be finished with his meeting because no matter how much I touch myself these days, without the final essential ingredient—Matteo—I’m a hopeless, increasingly frustrated cause.