I lay back against the pillows, grabbing a piece of bacon from the tray to watch their normal morning routine.
“Si.”
“Because you splashed water on it or because you actually brushed your teeth?” He raised a brow. “Come here, let me smell your breath.”
Rora glared at him for a second then huffed, rolling off the end of the bed to stand and stalk sassily from the room.
“You better wait for me to open her presents,” she shouted on the way to her bedroom.
Dante stared after her bemusedly. “Dio help me when she becomes a teenager.”
I laughed, fisting my hand in his black tee to bring him closer to me for another kiss. “Her papa is an infamous mafia Don, I don’t think you have to worry about boys around her until she’s fully grown.”
“It’s not the boys I’m worried about,” he muttered, moving the tray over my lap so he could sit beside me, curling an arm over my shoulder and taking the ends of my long hair between his fingers. “She’s enough trouble on her own.”
I laughed again, because this was undoubtedly true.
“Happy birthday, cuore mia,” he murmured, drawing his nose from my forehead to my ear. “Are you a happy twenty-eight-year-old?”
I beamed at him. “I don’t think I could be happier. I barely recognize myself sometimes.”
It was true. When I looked in the mirror in the mornings, there were no haunted eyes staring back at me a ghostly shade of gray. I smiled more often, laughed readily, and couldn’t wait to return to home to my loud house filled with loved ones at the end of every work day.
He chuckled as Rora came sprinting back into the room in her pajamas and dove onto the bed at my side.
She snagged a piece of my bacon and chewed it nosily as she asked. “Can we give her our presents now?”
“I think so.” Dante leaned over the bed and handed me a long, wide, flat wrapped present. “This one is mostly from Rora.”
My sweet girl grinned at me, propping her arm and chin on my thigh as she watched me open it.
I tore the paper off without an inkling to what may have lay beneath it, so I wasn’t prepared when I saw the adoption papers signed and notarized in my hands. I had signed them months ago when we first got the papers back from Gideone, but we hadn’t asked Aurora yet how she would feel about being our daughter.
My mouth hung open, my wet gaze snapping between Dante and Rora.
“What?” I whispered.
“Rora came to me a few weeks ago and asked why we hadn’t adopted her yet,” Dante explained, as he reached across the bed to draw his big hand over her head. “She thought we didn’t want to keep her.”
My eyes darted to Rora, horrified. “How could you ever think that?”
She shrugged a little weakly. “You guys could have your own babies one day. Maybe you wouldn’t want me then. I just wanted to know where I would go if that happened so I could be prepared.”
My heart tore inside my chest with an audible ripping sound that echoed in my ears.
“Rora, gattina,” I murmured through the tears in my throat. I cupped her sweet face, staring into those big brown eyes that were much too worldly for a seven-year-old. “We would never want you anywhere but at our side, capisci? We didn’t want to rush you into becoming our daughter legally. You’ve been through so much.”
“I never had a dad, not really. I loved my mama,” she whispered brokenly. “I love her today and always. But she’s gone and I love you too. I want to be your daughter. You both saved me. I don’t feel safe anywhere but here at home with you.”
I moved the tray of food off my lap and fitted my arms beneath her pits to draw her up between Dante and I, her thighs straddling each of our laps.
“I wanted to be a mother all my life,” I told her softly, tracing the line of her nose and her soft cheek, the curve of her eyebrow and the corner of her jaw. Every inch of her was as dear to me as every inch of Dante was. “It was my biggest dream in life to have a family. It might not be possible for Dante and I to make a baby together, but do you know what? That doesn’t matter because even though I never ever would have wished what happened to Bambi and Jacopo to happen, my dreams came true when you came into our home. You just made them even more real giving me this.” I shook the papers in my other hand. “How many people do you know whose dreams really came true?”
She pursed her lips adorably. “Zio always says his dreams came true when he met you.”
My gaze shot up to Dante who was smiling at us both like her couldn’t believe his luck.
“Yeah, okay,” I allowed, swallowing the emotions clogged in my throat. “Both your zio and I had our dreams come true and you are a massive part of that. I hope you never doubt how much we love you.”
“Siamo con te,” Dante told her, leaning forward to kiss the top of her head. “anche quando non lo siamo.”
We are with you, even when we are not.
“That’s like what you always tell Elena,” she murmured, eyes wide.
“Yeah, because I love you two most of all,” he whispered. “But don’t tell nonno Tore.”
She laughed in a way that said she was totally going to tell Tore.
Dante smiled at me over her head and leaned into kiss me softly. “Happy birthday,” he repeated. “And happily-ever-after. Let’s enjoy the peace while it lasts.”
I laughed and Rora laughed with me because she loved to hear our mirth tangled together like a song. Then Dante joined in and my heart almost burst in my chest with joy.
There was no ice left in me.
No walls.
Because I had a mafioso to protect my heart better than I ever could.
Epilogue
Elena
I was thirty-three when it happened.
Older than I’d thought I would be as a girl before everything happened.
Now, my age didn’t matter.
Miracles existed outside of time and that’s what this was.
A miracle.
I took a test.
Then two more from different brands.
But that wasn’t enough.
I’d learned a long time ago that hope was a fickle bitch.
So, I made an appointment with Monica just to confirm.
If I was going to tell Dante, it had to be true. Feeding him a false dream would be worse than swallowing it down myself.
For once, I wanted to give the man who had gifted me his world something worthy of his love.
When she confirmed it was true, I almost panicked because I wanted to give him the news like the gift it was.
Like a treasure.
So, I waited two weeks and told him on his fortieth birthday.
“Svegliati, cuore mio,” I murmured as I got back into bed that morning, straddling his prone hips so I could press kiss to his face. “Wake up, my love.”
“Mmm, I’m an old man now,” he grumbled without opening his eyes. “I need my rest.”
I laughed against his stubbled cheek. “Too old to open presents?”
Immediately, those olive black eyes I adored snapped open. “I could wake up for presents.”
I rolled my eyes as if I wasn’t almost jumping out of my skin with excitement. “You’re ridiculous.”