“That’s a big responsibility.”
I gave her a sad smile.
“Do you think you’re up to it?”
She gave me a little nod.
“How can I not be? I can’t let Frank destroy us. I love you.”
My heart fucking just about stopped in my chest.
“Did… did you just say what I think you did?”
She tugged the covers down and reached out, grasping my hand.
“I love you, E.”
I didn’t know what to say in response to that. The unexpected sometimes rendered me speechless. So I did instead. Pulling back the covers, I crawled in next to her and wrapped her up against my chest, burying my face in her blonde hair. She clung to me and didn’t try and prompt me to say anything which I was grateful for. I needed a minute to get myself together. To take in the magnitude of her admission.
She loves me. I don’t know why this makes me feel so… everything.
When Xav told me he loved me, it wasn’t entirely the same since I’d been hearing it my whole life in a different context. Not to say him being in love with me wasn’t monumental. It was. It’s just having Ash say it was like a fucking bomb go off in my chest. It almost squeezed the life out of me in the best way possible. Ash hadn’t known me her whole life. She’d grown to love me in these few months we’d been around each other. In the time we’d been together.
“Beautiful,” I murmured against her hair before shifting lower and kissing her face. I couldn’t help planting them all over. On her forehead. Her eyes. Her cheeks. Her lips. “Ash.” My heart thumped so hard against my chest, it almost hurt. “Hellcat.”
Her hand came up and curled in my hair, keeping me right there as she stared into my eyes.
“Yeah?” she whispered.
“I love you too.”
“E…”
“I mean it. You are the only person in this world I wish to have by my side… with the exception of Xav.”
“Mustn’t forget him.”
I grinned.
“He’d never let us forget. He might be loud, proud and ridiculous at times, but he’s our idiot.”
That made her smile properly and it warmed my fucking soul to see it. Then she closed the distance and kissed me. I pressed her closer, keeping her flush against my body. I needed to feel her. To know this was real and true.
“I really love you,” she mumbled against my lips before her tongue tangled with mine. I almost groaned and tried not to get aroused by her small but curvy frame rubbing against mine. Judging by the bite marks on her chest, Rory hadn’t held back last night so I could only imagine how she was feeling this morning.
Pulling away, I rested my forehead against hers.
“And you’re going to save us.”
“I will, I promise.
Her blue eyes were bright as she said it. Ash was the most determined woman I knew. She’d just been through too much emotionally over the past couple of days. Didn’t mean she wasn’t strong enough to fight this. She’d go to the ends of the earth just to keep us all safe, of that much, I was sure. Quinn would have to suck it up because this girl right here, she was in control of all of our fates now. Ash had the keys to our future.
“I know you will, my love, I know.”
Chapter 19
I was going to fucking tear this piece of shit a new one. Not only had I been blindsided last night with the knowledge Russo was trying to get the families involved with his war against me, but now I had these fucking roses to deal with. Forty-eight hours. What a fucking joke.
“What are we going to do?” Xav asked as he slumped in a chair in front of my desk.
I tapped my fingers against my phone, just about ready to fucking explode with anger. I needed to call Nate, but I also needed to get Xav on task.
“Has to be tomorrow night. We’ll do it at the casino. Get them together without Russo there and have Ash tell them she’s aligned with us. We might need to reveal her parentage to convince them of the truth so speaking to Viktor is imperative, but first, we need to make sure they attend.”
“That’s not going to stop Russo from coming after us.”
I knew that, but if he didn’t have the backing of the rest of the families, he’d have a harder time getting to us.
“I never said it would. It buys us time. He needs the backing of the rest of them to make a move against us. If he doesn’t have that, he’ll have to find another way.”
Xav rubbed the back of his neck.
“I don’t like this.”
We both looked at the roses I’d placed on my desk. They were like a fucking omen signalling our impending doom. Even if we gave Ash back to Russo, which wasn’t an option, he’d still come after us. We’d fucked with him and he wouldn’t let it go. Ever.
“What do you want me to do, Xav? We knew if he found out who we are, he’d want us dead. This isn’t exactly an unexpected outcome. We stole his heir and kept her as our own.”
Xav clenched his fist in his lap and shook his head.
“It’s still fucked up. What if this doesn’t work, huh?”
“We disappear.”
“We can’t disappear if we don’t have a way to get her out of the country.”
I almost cursed. Xav was right. We couldn’t take Ash away with us without a passport. Why the hell hadn’t I considered that? Probably because I never thought we’d have her with us nor be in a position where we had to disappear. It was a last resort. We didn’t want to leave. We’d built our home here.
