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“I’m going to get in the water,” Gia says after a little while. “Come with me?”
I raise an eyebrow. “I already have sand sticking to me. Now we’re going in the salt water?”
Gia rolls her eyes playfully. “That’ll wash the sand off. A win/win. Come on—we can go get lunch after this.”
I frown at her, but the pleading look that she gives me is hard to ignore, and I sigh, standing up as I reach to strip off my shirt. “Alright, then.”
The look on her face when I toss my shirt down to the blanket makes me forget all my complaints about the sand. Her gaze sweeps over me, lingering on my chest and upper arms, a heated look in her eyes that immediately makes me think that going into the cold water might be a good idea.
It startles me, seeing the desire on her face as she looks at me. It never occurred to me, when I made the impulsive decision to marry her in order to keep her out of the Bratva’s clutches, that she might come to want me. I assumed that when I upended all her plans for her future, she would resent me indefinitely. That even if we found a way to make peace on that subject, she would never want me the way she clearly wanted her Bratva fiance.
And I was so sure that I could—and should—never want her that I hadn’t even considered what might happen if she did.
Now, as I see her look at me with the sort of desire that I never imagined seeing in her face, it hits me that she’s right. That I’ve been unfair to her, to steal her away from the marriage she planned for and condemn her to a cold, passionless union for the sake of keeping her protected. It was for her own good, and certainly not a fate worse than being trapped with the Bratva—but I thought it would be enough just to protect her.
I didn’t think past that one goal.
But if we make this more?—
I feel that sense of panic writhing in my gut again as I follow Gia down to the water’s edge. I’ve been around long enough to know what comes of this. To know what could happen if I let myself explore these feelings that she rouses in me. One day of letting my guard down, and I can already see things in her that could make me fall for her. So what happens after that?
I’m afraid of what happens if I let myself love her. It’s not just the lingering guilt I feel over my own desire, that nagging reminder that she was entrusted to me to protect, not to take to my bed. I also fear that if I let myself fall for her, I won’t be able to do just that—protect her.
Enzo’s love for his daughter, his desire to make her happy at all costs, nearly led to her being fed to the wolves. If I allow myself to love Gia—albeit in a different way—will love blind me similarly?
I was raised to believe that feelings are for men without the responsibilities and power that I have. I often thought, as I spent my life working for Enzo, that without my clear-headedness, he might have made many more mistakes than he did because of the innate kindness he had. I gave up the chance for a family to focus on serving Enzo, to make it my life’s work. To prevent myself from ever having anything else that could distract me.
But today, I can feel something changing. I find myself wanting to be softer with Gia. To give her what she so clearly wants.
And I can’t help but wonder if I have a responsibility to make her happy, since I claimed her on her wedding day, and insisted that she be my wife.
“Are you coming?” Gia’s voice cuts through my thoughts, bright and a little high-pitched from the cold as she dashes into the water. I follow her, sucking in a breath at the chill as the water laps at my calves.
“Is this not insanely cold to you?” I shiver, walking a little deeper, wincing as the cold water grazes my upper thighs, and then higher. “It’s still spring, you know, even here.”
“It feels good to me.” Gia dives under the water, and for a moment, I feel a flash of fear as I see her disappear. She resurfaces a moment later, and I let out a breath that I hadn’t realized I was holding.
It strikes me how deeply protective I am of her, in ways that I don’t think even I fully realized. It’s just water, just a tropical beach—but the instant she went under, a dozen different scenarios flooded my mind of ways that something could have happened to her. I know that’s not normal. That if I stifle her like that, she’ll never love me.
Today has given me a glimpse of what life could be like, if Gia and I were happy together. I’m afraid to want it. Afraid to hope for something that I wrote off a long time ago, that could hurt me if it goes wrong. And there are so very many ways that it could go wrong. Even normal marriages, without the stresses of our strange lives, without the difference in our ages, with more in common than we have, go wrong all the time.
Our marriage is nearly impossible to dissolve. But I know that if Gia and I were happy for a while, only to lose that happiness and for our marriage to go back to the way it was before, it would be even worse than how things are now.
Gia disappears under the water again, and then springs up an inch away from me, emerging like some kind of dark-haired mermaid. Water is dripping down her tanned skin, and she’s close enough to touch. I feel my body tighten in response to how close she is, every part of me aching to reach out for her, to pull her close and kiss her under the bright sun, standing here in the crystal blue water.
Why not? The question burns into my mind, challenging everything I’ve thought up to this point. She’s my wife. Why not kiss her here, on our honeymoon, in this beautiful, romantic place? She hasn’t moved away, and I can feel her waiting for something. For me to make a decision—a choice, maybe.
I reach for her, my hand dipping beneath the cold water to touch the smooth, bare skin of her waist. It feels warm against my fingers, and I pull her closer, all of my awareness narrowing down to this. To her. I’ve never felt anything like it before. I’ve never felt anything so intensely.
Gia tips her head back, looking up at me as I pull her against me. She feels soft and warm, her skin wet against mine, and it makes my head spin with desire. Her eyes widen, her lips parting on a soft breath as she feels us touch, and I reach up with my other hand to slide my palm against her cheek.
Her eyes flutter closed. I feel her lean into my touch—a sign of trust. And not so long ago—yesterday, even—I would have said that the only way I could repay that trust was to deny her. But now, I’ve started to think that it might be something different.
That maybe it’s more than trust. It’s a willingness to give me another chance. To see if I might do things differently.
I slide my fingers into her wet hair, feeling it glide over my skin. My thumb brushes under the edge of her chin, tilting it up, bringing her mouth towards mine. And when I press my lips to hers, it feels as if the whole world shifts around me.
It feels as if everything is different. Brighter. The heat of the sun beating down on us, the cold of the water lapping at my legs, the feeling of her hands sliding up my chest, around my neck, holding me as she arches into me and her lips part under mine. The call of birds, the smell of salt—it all forms a moment that I know I’ll remember, regardless of what happens next, of what comes after this. I cling to it, because I’m not sure there’s ever been a moment that I want to remember more.
