Page 7 of Reborn to Love You

The voice sounded very...official. The kind that had all heads swing back, Payton’s included, and that was when she saw several men walking in, all of them in dark suits, and the one in front was showing his badge.

FBI?

Everyone started talking at once while her husband’s face started losing color.

“You’re under arrest for the murder of Payton Cheyney.”

And of course, what happened after that...

Pandemonium.

There was so much going on that Payton didn’t even know where, who, what to look at first. But when she saw her boss in the corner of her eye moving forward, it was as if everything melted, and this time, all she could see was him.

Niccolò de Vindice.

A man like him, and someone like her...

Their paths should never have crossed, but life was strange that way at times, and she somehow ended up working for him.

Behind them, chaos still reigned, with her husband trying but failing to make a run for it, and the Feds now had a violently struggling Eric pinned to the ground. As one of them read him his Miranda rights, Eric let out an outraged howl.

“This isn’t right! I’m innocent! My wife killed herself!”

And yet throughout this, Payton was unable to take her gaze off the man standing by her casket, his features seemingly carved in marble. She saw his fists clench against his sides, and finally...

“I’m sorry.”

His voice was raw, the pain in his tone mirrored by what she saw in his haunted eyes of gold.

“I should have...I didn’t know...”

Payton’s chest squeezed at the way he was struggling to speak, something she had never seen him do.

“Tu sei il mio cuore.”

One of his reasons for hiring her was her fluency in Italian, and so...

Tu sei il mio cuore, her boss had said.

Payton was still fighting back her own tears when his words sank in.

You are my heart.

Her stunned, confused gaze flew to Niccolò.

Did I really hear him right?

Her boss’s jaw was clenched, his expression still ravaged.

Did he really say—

But Payton had no chance to finish her thought.

Because darkness, the same kind of darkness that had swallowed her whole when Eric murdered her in cold blood—

No, wait, please!

It was back.