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I nodded and walked past her into the narrow room filled with shelves. The tiny dog lay curled in a basket.

I swallowed heavily, the pain of that loss so long ago still there. Still making my lungs ache and dread claw at my throat. Because I could still see in my mind the blood on my first dog’s fur. I scooped the puppy’s warm body into my palms. It yawned and squirmed, then settled back to sleep in my hands. Hands that had done so much damage without remorse. But when had my hands become so much like my father’s—big, scarred, brutal? And unable to treasure or deserve anything that mattered.

And suddenly I knew—I couldn’t kill the fear without facing it. And I couldn’t ever deserve Eva—her light, her sweetness, her hope—until I did.

But how did I do that?

Fucking her, wanting her, needing her, giving her a role she could be proud of, protecting her and respecting her would never be enough for her. Because she would always want more. A part of me had known that even before I’d married her. And I had convinced myself I would never have to give it to her, because I didn’t want to, I didn’t need to. But the truth was, I had never really been able to. Not since the day when all my hope had died, too.

He’d killed it that day, and I’d hated him for it. But it was me who had killed it today.

So how could she not hate me, too?

Evie

I dumped my purse on the hall table and slipped off my heels, still feeling hollow inside and so confused. I’d left the event planning meeting early, unable to care about the dinner I was arranging for Dante and his associates and their partners to celebrate a new construction in TriBeCa.

How could I invest anything in our lives here now, when it felt as if the bottom had dropped out of our marriage? That it had always been a dream that wasn’t real.

He’d told me he couldn’t love me in so many ways, and I hadn’t listened.

I knew Dante had led a violent life, and that I’d married a violent man, who had no doubt killed people on his way to the top. But I’d also convinced myself that, like Vito, he’d killed out of necessity, people who threatened him, people who knew the score and lived by the same violent code he did. That his past and what he’d done to survive and prosper didn’t mean he couldn’t love me, that he wasn’t capable of love. But how did I reconcile the man I thought he was with the man who had threatened to kill a puppy?

As I entered the basement annexe, Maria appeared. ‘Signora Malvini, I have been trying to contact you…’ she said, her expression concerned.

‘I’m sorry, I had my phone turned off for a meeting,’ I murmured. ‘What is it?’

I hadn’t told Maria what had happened with Dante, determined to defend him even now. But I had told her that we would have to rehouse the puppy. Had she guessed though, when she whispered, ‘Il Capo came home ten minutes ago and took the puppy… Up to your suite.’

Panic lanced through me. ‘Oh, God.’ Why had Dante come back so early? Had he returned to kill the puppy, as he’d threatened? Nausea charged up my throat. My fear for the little dog made me feel physically sick, but what scared me even more was the thought that if he did such a terrible thing, I would never be able to forgive him. Or myself.

I ran out of the annexe and raced up the stairs two at a time towards our bedroom, terror making my lungs contract and my heart threaten to explode.

‘Dante, don’t hurt it… Please don’t hurt it,’ I cried, but the plea expelled from my lungs in a hissed whisper, my chest so tight I could hardly speak.

The bedroom was empty, but then I heard noises coming from the dressing room.

The puppy.

Everything inside me stopped, my terror so huge my feet were anchored to the carpet.

But then my mind registered what I was hearing… Not squeals of distress, but the same playful yips the puppy had made while I was bathing him.

Then I noticed Dante’s voice, speaking in Italian. He sounded hoarse, broken almost, but there was no anger in his tone. I couldn’t make out what he was saying over the high-pitched yips, but the words sounded tender rather than threatening.

The blast of memory returned in a rush, from the first morning I had woken up with him in that stormy house on Capri and he’d murmured, ‘Buongiorno, Eva.’

I’d been terrified of him then, but I realised now, that was the moment I had begun to believe while he was a dangerous man, he would never be a danger to me.

I gathered a painful breath into my lungs. Funny to know now, I’d been wrong about that, because he had always been a danger to my heart.

I crossed the room, to ease open the dressing room door and peer in. The panic dissolved, to be replaced with confusion… And the fierce rush of love.

He sat on the floor in his suit pants and his shirt and waistcoat, holding an expensive designer loafer in his hand, so the puppy in his lap could tug on it.

‘Dante?’ I murmured, not wanting to break the spell, scared what I was seeing wasn’t real. That I’d somehow conjured it up out of anxiety and heartbreak.

His gaze rose, and I saw the desolation in his eyes, the cobalt blue transparent with emotions he’d never let me see before.