Chapter Twenty-Three
Dallas
“Where are we going?” I ask from the passenger seat, smoothing my hand through Poppet’s fur. I turn to the window and look out at the forest, an expanse of vivid green that reminds me of Tolkien’s Shire. “It looks like a freaking fairyland out here.”
“The perfect place for a fantasy writer?” Dom murmurs, a sly smirk on his lips.
I turn to him with a smile, feeling excitement rise a blossoming flower-like blush on my cheeks.
“Why do I feel like you’re up to something?”
He glances at me briefly, wearing a steel suit with the top button undone, showing a sliver of his muscled chest. Every inch of him exudes power and confidence and victory as he sits there, my man remade, not the executor I mistakenly believed him to be.
“I’m always up to something,” he grins wolfishly.
Last night when we lay in bed together – after the rushing, frantic lovemaking, lovemaking that caused shivers of elation to riot gloriously through me – I told him I was sorry for ever believing he could be that man.
“I’ve cultivated a certain image,” he sighed. “That of a man to be feared. It’s necessary to stop other Families from rising up and bringing mayhem back to the streets. Because I’ll always protect this city just like I’ll always protect our family, Dallas.”
“So you don’t hate me for thinking it?”
He kissed my forehead softly. “I could never hate you.”
Now he turns onto a lane bordered on all sides by thick leafed trees, their foliage almost impenetrable, the sort of forest that could send a fantasy minded writer into a mad dance of creativity.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Poppet sits up, tail perked, ears perked, utterly alert as she aims her snout here and there.
“See,” I go on. “You’ve even gotten Poppet all worried.”
“Don’t worry, Poppet,” Dom says, his voice suddenly husky. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
I feel a tumbling mass of warmth in my belly as we drive, the significance of this moment starting to build inside of me.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. We could be doing anything out here.
But I’m already on a gleeful high after the discussion with Mom and Dad yesterday, the knowledge that they’re not going to fight this relationship making me feel like I can finally relax, I can finally be with Dom without reservations.
It’s all too easy to let the momentum of that happiness collide with today and drive my mind into a frenzy of speculation … and everything I settle on is warm, fuzzy, right.
My breath catches when we emerge into a clearing.
I just stare at what I’m convinced for a few moments is some kind of green screen or mirage. But then my eyes focus on the scene, the small yellow bricked cottage sitting next to a pond bordered on all sides by earth-green fencing, wrapped with ivy and vines … And the whole place, the whole picture of it, looks like a fantasy writer’s cottage, a precious private place where—
“It’s yours,” Dom says, reading my mind. He reaches across and slides his hand behind my neck, tickling me adoringly. “I know you’re going to prove to the world what an incredible writer you are with your skill alone. But there aren’t any rules about me giving you a perfect place to do it from, are there?”
“No,” I whisper, feeling tears prick my eyes. “This is amazing.”
“Let’s go look at the pond,” he says, suddenly throwing the door open and springing out.
“Okay,” I laugh, following him. Poppet leaps from the seat and darts around the cottage, sniffing frantically, establishing a border around her humans.
“You seem very keen to look at the pond.”
He turns with one hand in his pocket, the sun framing him from behind, making him seem bright and silhouetted at the same time.
“Come here, Dallas,” he says.
I walk over, feeling as though I’m in a dream, but the closer I get to my fantasy cottage the more real it becomes.
“I wanted to bring you here to show you that I’ll always support you,” he says, taking my hand with his free hand, the other still suspiciously in his pocket. “And I wanted to, no, need, to tell you that I love you. I love you, Dallas. I loved you the second I saw you in that alleyway, before the goddamned bomb. I remember feeling like my world came crashing down.”
I blink away tears of joy, a swelling in my chest trying to make me sob. But I choke it back and instead speak the words I’ve been holding back, “I love you, Dom. I love you so much. I love you more than I ever believed possible.”
“Good,” he grins, reaching up now and wiping away my tears.
His other hand still in his pocket, he brings it out as he falls fluidly to one knee and presents me with a ring box. I gasp and stare at it, Poppet bubbling energetically beside me because she knows how important this is, too.
“Dallas Smith,” he says, his eyes holding mine, brimming with sparkling emotion. He opens the box. “I love you. I fucking love you. Please make me the happiest man in the world and be my wife. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I beam, hardly knowing what to do with myself.
Somehow I end up on top of him, my arms wrapped around him, both us rolling in the fresh-smelling grass as Poppet yaps and licks at our faces.
“She must think we’ve gone mad,” I giggle.
“Mad with love,” Dom grins. “Let me put the ring on you at least, Firecracker. Goddamn, you just jumped on me.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Never,” he growls, sliding the ring onto my finger, the metal cool and fitting perfectly.
I hold my hand to the light, examining the elegant yet full diamond, the way it dances, and shifts in the light.
Perfect.
Epilogue
Two Weeks Later
Dom
“So I’m going to be your father-in-law,” Gabriel says, chuckling from the kitchen bar and then taking a satisfying sip of his beer.
In the two weeks since the madness with the
