EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

Later that night...

T HE BED WAS LARGE .

Dante stretched out his arms, his long legs, his feet—searching for her. The warmth of her tiny toes to stroke against his. Her soft body to pull into his. And he found her. He stroked his feet against hers, placed his hand on her hip and pulled her into the groove of his hips. Pushed his face into her hair and inhaled her.

His lungs were full.

He wasn’t alone.

He wasn’t cold.

He was warm.

He was loved.

‘I need to tell you something,’ she said, and rolled to face him. She reached for his face and cradled it. And she searched his eyes as he searched hers. ‘Are you afraid?’

‘No,’ he said and reached for her face and held it as she held his. ‘Are you?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’ The tip of her tongue crept out to moisten the pink pout of her lips. ‘But tomorrow we should call a doctor.’

‘And what will we tell him?’ He smiled. ‘That we are in love?’

‘Yes.’ And she smiled, but it trembled. ‘We should tell him against all odds—all improbability—we found each other. We found love. And because of that love, we have made a baby.’

‘A baby?’

‘I know it,’ she husked. ‘I know it, as I knew you would come back to me. Trusted it. Hoped when hope should have been dead. But it lived inside me.’ She reached for his hand and placed his open palm on her naked stomach. ‘As does our baby, Dante. It is growing inside me. And I’m not afraid. Because I know fate has given us both this gift. It is a miracle. Against all the odds. And we will keep our baby safe in whatever place we are. We will be the family we never had. We will have joy. We will have love.’

His finger moved over her stomach. The soft swell. ‘Emma,’ he growled as it swept over him. Warmth. The primal urge to shelter her with his body and protect her. Protect what was inside her. A child they had made. Because he believed her. Believed that the gods of old, of new, had answered his prayers.

‘I love you, Emma,’ he said because he did, because she was the gift he never expected.

She was his family.

‘Kiss me, please,’ she begged.

Dante kissed her, and she kissed him. With need. With longing for all the things they had and for all the things that were to come. And they gave themselves up to it.

To hope. To fate. To love.