Katie looked up at me as I said my final goodbye. “They say you die twice. Once when you take your last breath and again the last time someone mentions your name.” She cupped my face in her hands and kissed my lips. Nothing passionate. Not the brutal, possessive kisses we were used to. This one was meant to soothe, to comfort. “I promise I won’t let your dad die twice.”
I had no fucking clue what love was or how it felt, but in this moment, I was certain I was pretty damn close.
We left the tomb and made our way to the Town Car waiting outside the gate. A group of men watched silently as we passed. I recognized Jonathon Cirillo immediately. He stood with his hands in his pockets and a shit-eating smirk plastered across his ugly face. Keaton was at his side. Figures.
“So, it’s true.” Jonathon smirked as Katie walked past him. “You really are sleeping with the enemy.”
These assholes really wanted to do this here? Now? At my father’s funeral?
I was about to make him look like the poster child for bad plastic surgery when Keaton grabbed Katie’s arm and yanked her against him. My eyes caught the flash of a sharp silver blade at her side. Rage boiled in my blood, hot and swift. Fuck witnesses. I was about to murder this motherfucker. His first mistake was touching her. His second was thinking he was going to hurt her.
“What? You’re going to kill me now?” Katie asked as she struggled to fight her way out of his grip.
He looked at her with a twisted mix of hatred and lust. What a fucking psychopath. “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve killed you a long time ago.”
In one swift motion, I lunged forward and gripped his wrist, squeezing until the knife fell to the ground. He swung at me as I bent to pick it up. I ducked then drove the blade into his thigh, giving it a hard twist for the fuck of it, and all without breaking a sweat.
He shoved Katie away from his body as the color drained from his face. “You’re going to regret that,” he spit out.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “If you touch anything that belongs to me ever again, I will slit your throat, rule it a suicide, and no one will care enough to question it. Understand?” I moved my gaze across the entire group then back to Keaton. “And you might want to get that looked at. It’s bleeding pretty bad.”
I placed a hand on Katie’s back and started leading her to the car. She stopped, turned back, then looked Jonathon in the eye. “You claim to honor and respect Matteo Bellizzi, but your actions say the opposite. Do you really believe the man who was able to raise an army was incapable of raising a child? Why would you doubt my choices when the man you’re willing to lose your life to follow is the one who instilled them in me?” Her lips spread into a proud grin. “Don’t ever forget, gentlemen. I am my father’s daughter.”
A sudden hush fell over the group then slowly, one by one, they each began to bow—with the exception of Keaton. These men hadn’t bowed to a king in over five years.
She cast her spell on them the same way she had bewitched me. It was settled. I was going to marry the fuck out of Katie Bellizzi.
Twenty-Eight
I slid into the storm blue gown Sutton bought for me. The silk kissed my skin as I pulled it over my nakedness, remembering his words before he left this morning. No panties, and don’t even think about challenging me. I will lift that dress up in the middle of the fucking church and spank your sweet ass.
For such a well-bred royal, my king had a filthy mouth.
Sutton said this was a small, intimate ceremony. I walked through the doors of St. Leo’s Cathedral, and there were at least one hundred people awaiting the crowning of their king. If this was intimate, I hated to see what the public coronation would be like. Huge white stone arches and massive columns bordered the traditional nave where everyone was seated. At the end of the church, above the altar, the sun glimmered through a colorful stained-glass window. It was all very Gothic and majestic… and fit for a king.
A footman took my arm as soon as I walked through the door and led me to a row of seats in front of the church. In the center of the main aisle sat a huge wooden chair on a large onyx stone base flanked by small lion statues. I gasped at the sight of it.
This is where my man will become a king.
He walked out of one of the passageways and my heart jumped to my throat. His eyes drank me in as though he finally found what he’d been searching for all his life. Or maybe it was just the fact that he was about to be crowned king of Torryn. His smoldering gaze ran the length of my body, and I swore he mouthed Mine as he walked past. I watched as the dark blue robe moved against his strong, broad back as he made his way to the chair.
The rest of the ceremony was ritualistic. The archbishop anointed Sutton with oil, blessed him, then placed the crown upon his head. I knew the crown was symbolic, not something to be worn every day like kings before him had done, but seeing it on his head stirred something inside me I never knew existed. I wanted this for him more than I ever wanted anything for myself. I knew what it took for him to get to this moment, all that he had to sacrifice. The lifetime of friendships, laughter, and love, of never getting too close because close meant vulnerable and royals couldn’t afford vulnerability. I wanted to give it all back to him, to be his best friend, to fall asleep making him laugh, and to love him. I loved him.
I tried so hard to fight it, but the truth was I never had a choice, and he knew it. Sutton didn’t crash through the wall I built around my heart. He burned it down. I loved him.
This was everything he fought against and all that he fought for. This was who Sutton Thorne was born to be.
Every time his eyes cut to me and his lips twitched to fight a smile, I wanted to stand up and shout to the entire world that this man was mine. He belonged to me.
I loved him.
I waited for him in his antechamber, leaning against the grand piano and remembering the first time he brought me here. It seemed like an eternity ago, even though it had only been weeks. We’d been through so much since then.
“You wore the dress.” Sutton’s voice was like cool summer rain washing over my hot skin.
He pulled his suit jacket off as he walked, tossing it on a chair, then started working his tie loose. Even without the crown and robe, he was every bit the king of the jungle stalking his prey.
“You thought I wouldn’t?”
He stopped in front of me. “You mean, do I think you’re unpredictable? Abso-fucking-lutely.” He dragged his thumb across my bottom lip. “But that’s one of the things I love about you.” I opened my mouth and let his thumb slip inside. He gripped my chin while I ran my tongue over his finger. “I’m going to hell.” He pulled his hand from my mouth and brought it to his, trailing the same thumb over his own lips.
“Why?”
“Because you wore that dress.”
“You bought the dress.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to sit there… in a fucking church… looking at you and not think about being inside of you?” He grabbed the nape of my neck and squeezed. Not hard, but enough to make my body tingle. “Knowing that if I slipped my hand in this dress right here…” He put his other hand on my chest, inching his fingertips inside the open “V” in the dress. “Slid the fabric to the side just an inch…” His hand slid all the way inside and he pushed the dress over, exposing my bare breast. “I would see where I marked you last night.”