Those words and the look in his eyes warm me even before he sits down and slips the shirt over my head. I settle it over my body, the material soft, while I’m quite aware of it having been next to his hard body. Like I just was. Like I want to be again. “Thank you,” I murmur.
“Thank me by going to bed in my shirt every night for the rest of our lives.”
And just like that, we’re in the place I wanted us to be, staring at each other, the air pulsing with unspoken words I’m ready to voice. “You do know that there was never a moment when I doubted wanting to marry you, right? And that nothing in today’s meeting was ever going to change that. If you really believed that, why did you ask me to marry you?”
“When you hesitated over my proposal, it made me take a step back and ask myself if I was wrong about what you felt and what I thought—”
“Don’t say that,” I say. “You were not wrong.”
“No,” he says confidently, “I wasn’t. But regardless of understanding your reason for the hesitation, when a man asks a woman to marry him, he wants a yes.”
“I’m sorry, Kayden. I handled today horribly wrong.” I inhale and let it out. “And the truth is, if I’m honest with myself and you right now, as ironic and wrong as it is, when you started to doubt us, it hurt.”
“There was never any doubt, sweetheart. I explained where my head was. And like I said, I’m a selfish bastard when it comes to you. I’m owning up to that. I want you here, despite all the risks that are part of The Underground.”
“Don’t say you’re selfish. Because how am I not selfish, if I bring danger to you with Neuville hunting me? Or if I’m CIA—”
“You are CIA,” he corrects.
“Then what about the danger I might bring from that? The point is that if you keep saying you’re selfish for marrying me, then I see where that leads. If something happens to me, you’ll say it was because you were selfish—and you can’t. Because if I die, Kayden, I promise you I will have fought hard, taken someone with me, and enjoyed every moment I had with you. You have to promise me you’ll remember that. You have to, or you know what? I won’t marry you. Because I won’t—”
He cups the back of my head and kisses me. “You’re marrying me.”
“I know,” I say. “But promise me that you won’t say you’re selfish, or even think it.”
He doesn’t promise. He holds me there for several beats and then releases me and stands, leaning toward me and pressing his fists into the mattress and meeting my stare. “I’m going to be protective.”
“That’s understandable, since one mob boss killed your family and another one is after me. But eventually promise me that we can work together and get there.”
“We’re going to fight,” he warns.
“That’s okay, because I’ll win.”
His sexy, oh so talented lips curve. “You have a lot to learn,” he teases, “but I’ll teach you.” I laugh and shake my head while he straightens and offers me his hand. “Let’s go to the kitchen. I’m starving, and we have a lot to talk about.” I give him a tentative look and slide my hand into his, and he notices. “We’re just catching up on everything for the day. That’s what husbands and wives do.”
“Husband,” I say softly.
“Wife,” he says softly.
I haven’t missed the fact that he hasn’t let go of his self-proclaimed title of “selfish,”and I fear for how he’d deal with my death. But we have plenty of time to work on a remedy for that, since I don’t plan on dying.
“Come on,” he says, helping me off the bed.
My gaze catches on his new Rolex, and I hate that it’s pulled me from our sexy, romantic mood.
My hand comes down on it and he turns to face me. “You want to know about the watch given to Carlo.”
“Yes. Was it Niccolo?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“What? Why?”
“Because as I was standing in front of him, he made a comment that reminded me that he is a desperate, dying man. If he didn’t send it, it will make him feel his brother is moving faster than he is. He’ll push you for the necklace, and who knows what that will mean.”
I give a slow nod. “Yes. I believe he would. Thank God you thought of that.”
“But on that same note,” Kayden says, “I think that is exactly why it could be he who did this. He needs you to feel the urgency that he does to find the necklace. Scaring you and worrying me could be a strategy.”