I had expected it, but my world cracked in half anyway. I stopped.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. “What he said was true. Every word of it.”

“I know.”

“I grew up pretending to be the man I should’ve been. My job was made very clear to me after my father died. My mission in life was to attract the right kind of bride with a bank account large enough to keep our family alive. I went to the parties wearing designer clothes after listening to my mother cry on the phone with our creditors. I attended gallery openings and drank champagne while my sisters ate the same pasta with nothing but a bit of salt for three days in a row because it was all we had.”

The burden of it, the shame he must’ve felt, had to be crushing. But he talked about it as if he were discussing the morning news over coffee.

“Every time I tried to earn money, my family spat on it. After the third time my grandfather hurled the money I brought home in my face, I realized that they would never accept it. And when I refused to be sold, they excised me. In the last decade I’ve earned over sixty million. All of it, except for fifty thousand dollars I keep in my account as operational expenses, went to our debt and to my mother and my sisters. Xavier is right. I’m the reason their lights are on. I have earned enough to keep the creditors off their back and to make sure that my mother and my sisters won’t starve. They can afford clothes and shoes. They won’t go without. I would have kept going, but my oldest sister grew up. She’d acted as my agent since she was fourteen, but now she refuses to take my blood money. She says she doesn’t want the guilt of knowing I might die for it.”

“I think I would like your sister.”

His voice was so detached. He’d locked all his feelings into a cage of will and kept them there.

“I can offer you nothing except myself. All I can do is be an assassin or a bodyguard. I’m done being an assassin and you’re the only person I want to guard. I tried to tell you this before, but I wanted you so much, it almost made me insane. I am a prince in plastic jewels, but I was still raised as a Prime. I know what a Prime should bring to the marriage.”

“And what would that be?”

“A stable House. Political and financial connections. Alliances. Wealth. Security. I have none of it. I come to you with nothing. Right here, right now, this is all I will ever be. I can’t leave you on my own, Catalina, but if you tell me to go, I will. I promise I’ll never bother you again.”

He waited.

His words floated from my memory. You’re beautiful, you’re brilliant, and if they knew how dangerous you were, you would get buried in proposals.

It was my turn.

“Alessandro, you’re the most powerful antistasi on the planet. What you did in the Pit was beyond anything I could’ve imagined. You’re strong, skilled, educated, and you have this incredible brain that unravels complex schemes in seconds. You walked into a building full of trained killers and eliminated everyone there to save a child you barely knew. And then you went to see Victoria Tremaine and threatened to cut her head off, and she let you go because you are charming, and your bearing is flawless. Who in this world can do that? You’re kind to my relatives when you have nothing to gain. You’re probably the only person aside from my family who understands me and can call me on my crap. And with all of that, you love me. You bring so much, Alessandro.”

He stared at me.

“Don’t you get it? Right here, right now, you are everything I ever wanted. I don’t care about money, connections, or reputation. We can earn all these things, together. I just want you. You’re so much more than I hoped for. If you come home with me, I’ll be the luckiest person alive.”

I didn’t see him move. One moment he was standing by the fountain and the next he kissed me, his lips hot and desperate. He stole my breath away.

“Stay with me,” I asked him.

“Always,” he promised.

Epilogue

The hospital hallway lay shrouded in shadow. An older, distinguished man was waiting by the nurses’ station, a lone nurse nervously pacing by him. An elevator chimed quietly. The doors parted and an older woman stepped out, accompanied by a young man with a sharp haircut and dressed in a black suit.

The older man by the station raised his arms. “Where have you been?” he whispered.

“Spare me,” the older woman hissed. “This wasn’t exactly easy.”

“Hurry. We have fifteen minutes,” the nurse told them. “This baby is guarded like Fort Knox.”

She ushered the three of them into a room and shut the door. The young man in the suit parked himself by the door.

The older woman paced. “What if he’s a dud?”

“He is not a dud. None of them have been.”

She pressed her hands together and walked some more.

Hurried steps came from outside.

The door swung open and the same nurse entered, carrying a newborn, two guards behind her. The young man in a suit raised his hand and the two guards halted, their eyes blank.

The old woman rushed to the nurse and gently took the baby out of her arms. “Leave us.”

The nurse glanced at the older man. He nodded. She stepped outside and closed the door.

Tenderly, the old woman peeled off the blanket revealing the baby’s round face and tiny fists in pale mittens.

“What a beautiful boy. What a lovely, lovely boy.”

The older man grinned.

The woman rocked the baby and smiled. “Look, Trevor, isn’t he the most beautiful child you’ve ever seen?”

For the first time the young man in the suit spoke. “Yes, ma’am. He is.”