“Burden?”
“Blessing,” I tell her. She looks at me, shocked, and I shrug. “I love my family. I will loveourfamily.”
Licking her lips, she squares her shoulders and asks, “Why can’t you have children?”
My breath leaves my chest in a rush. In all honesty, I expected her to ask me about it long before now, but the question takes me completely off guard. I should have told her back when I told her she was going to be my wife.
Somehow, it feels heavier.
I run my fingers around my lips, then cross my arms and find I can’t make eye contact with her. “I was sexually assaulted.”
Alice sucks in a breath, but I don’t let her speak.
“I was young—barely over eighteen. I was at a party, and your father—” I pause and shake my head. “Guido decided that one of the best ways he could make me pay for the church incident was by getting my child on a Romano.” I finally meet Alice’s gaze. “I was drugged, and she got me alone, but Phoenix managed to get to me before she could do anything.”
Alice holds eye contact without wavering. “Who is she?” The venom in her voice hits me like a physical blow. She’s furious for me. As furious as all my boys had been when they heard. “Tell me, Kane. I want her name on a list.”
My lips twitch, and I lean close. “She’s long dead, princess. Well before you were born. Phoenix made sure of that.”
Alice sits back and almost looks disappointed. “Good. I hope she suffered.”
I don’t know how to handle this feeling that won’t leave my chest. “It was after that I decided to make sure that could never happen. Guido could do many things to me, but he’d never be able to steal from me.” I glance away, and my shoulders rise and fall in a defeated shrug. “It wasn’t long after that when Phoenix was shot.”
“Because you—”
“Yes,” I say, and this might be the first time I’ve admitted this aloud. I don’t actually blame myself, but I know what my actions set in motion. “I sent her back in pieces and made sure Guido knew that she had failed. I don’t know who shot Phoenix, but I do know that they came for him to hurt me as retribution.”
“Tell me you don’t blame yourself.”
I look at her and scoff. “I blame the fucking madman who murdered—” I stop abruptly. I’m not ready to say her name to Alice just yet. “Too many people,” I finish, and I can see from the look on her face, she doesn’t buy it. “I blame him for what he did to the men I love, and this is one of the ways I’ll punish him. He tried to steal from me, and I want him to feel the pain of knowing that I took you willingly. That you’re going to bear our child willingly. That you’d sell your soul to us instead of him.”
She says nothing, but I can see she’s shaken by my words, so I suppose that now’s as good a time as any. I don’t have a romantic bone in my body, so I’ve planned no speech, no surprise, no nothing except the ring and a promise.
I can’t even get on one knee because I can’t trust myself to get up when I’m finished, so I take her hand and slip the box from my pocket.
“Wait, are you proposing to—?” she starts, then clears her throat. “You already know I’m saying yes. I already agreed to it.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a little something more,” I tell her, not letting her go. I run my thumb over her left ring finger. It’s not thin, but it’s soft and it’s delicate. “I need you to understand that regardless of how we’ve come to make our wedding vows, they are not something I will break.”
She looks panicked for a second. “The guys…”
I shake my head sharply. “Fidelity is what we decide it means together, and they are part of me just like they’re part of you.”
She relaxes a fraction as I open the box with a flick of my thumb, and her gaze settles on the ring. “It looks old.”
“It was my mother’s,” I tell her, and her eyes go a little wild and frantic.
“Shouldn’t that go to someone important?”
I smile at the note of panic in her voice, and I reach for her, taking her left hand in mine. She stares at me almost like she wants to run, so I squeeze her tighter. “Itisgoing to someone important.” That’s all I can give her right now, and I hope it’s enough.
“Can I ask you something?” she says, her voice nearly a whisper.
My lip twitches. “You may.”
Alice rolls her eyes, but some of the tension drains from her shoulders, though she looks petrified. Her perfectly pink tongue darts out and runs over her lower lip, and I hate myself a little for waiting to taste her. “What would you do right now if I said no?”
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself since she agreed to my offer, and it’s the one question I still don’t have the answer to. “Are you saying no?”