Chapter 12

ANNA

Dante attempted to leap to his feet, only to bounce his head off a beam, the thud and following cursing only serving to amuse me despite his obvious rage at what I was telling him.

"Sorry, that was kind of funny, your head has clearly outgrown our house."

"Hmm, it's a long time since we played house up here, isn't it? And I think all of me has outgrown it."

Returning to a seated position opposite me, he took my hand in his. "That never happened, the arranged marriage or a girl from another family. My father has always known that you were the only girl for me. It was him that sent me to your house the day you left and told me to let you go, but to make sure you came back because he could see that we were destined to be together, forever."

I felt the smile curl my lips as I not only remembered that day but imagined my forever with Dante.

"What happened, Anna, on Carlo's wedding day?"

Catapulted back to that day cut me deep, but I needed Dante to hear this as much as I hoped I would be able to never revisit it. "I believed him and thought I had left it too late. Gino offered to let me tag along with him to the wedding. He told me his wife was unwell and couldn't attend, so he would take care of me."

Dante's eyes shone with fury while his hands clenched into fists and the muscle in his cheek twitched.

"I couldn't do it, and I think he knew I wouldn't be able to. The thought of seeing you with someone else was too much. It never occurred to me to check the information with Aldo, because why would Gino lie to me? What possible motive could he have to make up something so cruel and hurtful? When I told him I'd skip the wedding and go home, back to the city, he understood and offered me a ride to the station. I accepted."

The memory of that journey saw me sobbing, as if I was in that moment again, confined to the car as he forced himself on me, hurting me as he did exactly as he wanted before literally pushing me from the car with contemptuous words about me thinking I was too good for him, and that I would never have Dante once he knew I was used goods, used by him. My heart broke in that moment and broke again every time I thought that a future with Dante was never going to be mine.

I refused to relive the details. I had spent every day since that night forgetting it, blocking it from my memory, particularly in the time since Amina was born because no matter how she was conceived, she was my baby and I loved her more than anything in the world.

"Dante," I squeezed his hands more tightly as I uttered the words I had only said once before, to Aldo. "Gino raped me . . . and Amina is here because of it."

"I will fucking kill him!" Dante raged and I didn't doubt that he would follow through with his threat, and the death he spoke of would be slow, painful, and Aldo's reaction had been identical.

"No!" I wouldn't have his blood on my hands, nor Dante's, in the same way I had forbidden Aldo from killing anyone for me. "Aldo wanted to kill him, and when I forbade it, I don't know what I expected. I mean, I wasn't thinking straight. I was pregnant and knew I couldn't terminate it, and yet I hated the man who had done this to me. I think I assumed that Aldo would kill him anyway–"

He cut me off. "He should have told me."

"I forbade that too. In my head you were getting married and I was in no way anything to do with you and never would be. I didn't want anyone fighting my battles, least of all you, but without him telling you, I thought I had found a way to prevent him killing for me."

Running his hands through his hair, pulling on the ends before rubbing them over his face, Dante looked totally perplexed.

"I didn't say it made sense."

He let out a short laugh before pulling me closer. "Aldo didn't compromise his promise to you because you didn't say he couldn't maim that fucker and making him incapable of functioning in the life he'd made for himself."

"Yeah, but then he also took my secret, mine and Amina's to the grave, didn't he?"

"Fuck!" Dante cursed and got to his feet again, pulling me with him, the thud of his head bouncing off the same beam as earlier. "Jesus! We need a new treehouse, a taller one."

My grin was a welcome relief from the tears of the day as I absorbed the fact that Dante was planning a future that involved me, but why? Because he felt somehow responsible for what happened or perhaps due to the guilt of killing Aldo when his actions were exactly what Dante would have done had he had all of the facts . . . and just like that, the smile fell from my face.

"What?"

"If this, if I am no longer what you want–"

My words were cut off by his lips landing on mine. The gentlest, tiniest, almost fleeting of kisses landed, leaving me more breathless than any kiss I had ever known. "Let's not have that conversation ever again, understand?"

"Yes, completely."

"Good. Now, let's go home."