I was nestled in between the brothers as we began to stroll a dirt path leading into a mass of trees. The sun felt good on my face, and though the boots I wore were a little big, it felt good to stretch my legs and feel normal in the fresh air. The three of us walked in silence. Side by side.
Three.
Strike that. Four if you count the baby inside.
Stefano was the first to break the silence as we were several yards from the house. “It’s nice to be in the country.”
“The land is pretty spectacular,” Thomas added.
I hadn’t said a word since we walked out the door. I had no idea what to say. I had no idea what the hell was going on. These men seemed… different.
“My brother and I have made a decision,” Thomas said.
“We would like to stay. With you, with the baby, and we want to…” Stefano seemed to be struggling to find the right words.
I simply walked on. I was scared that if I chimed in at all, they would suddenly go back to their closed off, no emotion selves. I was terrified that what I heard them say to Gio was just a momentary lapse of judgement, and they would suddenly change their minds and hop back on the first flight to Miami or wherever else they bounced around to.
“We shouldn’t have left you,” Thomas said. “We know that now.”
“We shouldn’t have done a lot of things,” Stefano added, sounding remorseful, which was odd. I wasn’t used to seeing this softer side of either of them.
“When you confessed your feelings to us at the manor,” Thomas said, reaching for my hand and taking it in his. “You weren’t wrong. There was a bond between all of us. There was something so strong that it scared the holy hell out of both of us. Our plan was to never love you. To never care.”
“But we do,” Stefano cut in. He took my other hand. “We care and we love you. As hard as it is to say those words, and to admit the feeling, we do.”
Holding both of their hands, walking between them, strolling the countryside in Italy… we were talking about an epic love story right out of a romance novel. But this was too good to be true. This was so polar opposite of what I had before. This was not the future I had accepted as mine. It just couldn’t be.
When had my beasts turned into princes?
I pulled away from both of them and froze.
They walked in front of me so they could stare directly at me.
“We don’t deserve you,” Stefano said.
“And we don’t have the best of situations to offer,” Thomas added. “In fact, a life with the two of us won’t be easy.”
“And if you say no, truly say no and not want us in your day to day life anymore, we will accept that answer. Choosing us is not part of your punishment for the betrayal. We’re done dictating, we’re done demanding.”
“We’re done truly punishing,” Thomas said with his eyes locked with mine.
“Well…” Stefano had a smirk on his face. “We’re done punishing for the betrayal. We still have our… needs.”
Thomas chuckled. “Fair enough. We aren’t changed men. In fact, the reality is, we are who we are.”
“I told you from the beginning that I knew who you were. And I had accepted that,” I finally said. “But you both shattered my heart. You both rejected me and made me feel as if I was the only one who felt there was more between us.”
“And for that, we are sorry,” Thomas said.
“We’re sorry for a lot of things when it comes to you. We can’t fix it. We can’t take it all away. All we can do is move forward from this point on.” Stefano took a step toward me with an extended hand. “If you allow us to.”
I countered his movement by taking a step backwards. “And what does this future look like? How to you both see this playing out?”
“With you,” Stefano answered. “The three of us together raising the baby as a family.”
I looked at Thomas and studied his face, and then did the same with Stefano.
“It won’t be easy,” Thomas said. “We have a lot of the details still to work out. But we were thinking that one of us would marry you legally, and then the other would be the father on the birth certificate. That way, if something were to happen to either one of us and we were killed, you and the baby would be protected legally, and our assets would be yours in the eyes of the law.”
I didn’t care about all the legal details. Or how the money would be dispersed if they died. I wanted to know what this really meant.