Merciful Vows: A Bittersweet Second Chance Romantic Suspense (The Giannotti World Book 1)

by Vanessa Luisa

  Then just like that he kisses my sex and I begin quivering and moaning. Giulio lustfully growls at my tied hands that have come down to find his soft wavy hair. I guide him deeper and his tongue works all types of magic. It doesn’t take long to lose myself in a long, powerful orgasm.

  I wish I could see his face when I feel him coming back up to me. My back arches in his arms at the first thrusts. Yes. Yes. Yes. Our intimately pinned bodies drive me wild, as our fingers link together above my head and brush against the soft fabric headboard.

  “Keep your hands up here, baby,” he says by my ear, giving the lobe a rough tug with his teeth before running his tongue over my skin and diamond stud. “Mmhmm, right there.”

  “I’m sorry…not sorry!” I laugh.

  Giulio chuckles and I can hear the amusement in his tone. “God, I love you.” And then he kisses me so beautifully, swallowing my moans and connecting our bodies even closer as I open my legs wider, giving him even better access to fuck me harder.

  Giulio has a way of electrifying my entire body with one single caress, one single word, one single whiff of his scent. He’s always made me feel like this, yet right now, the sensation intensifies.

  Our wild hearts beat to the same rhythm.

  The tinge of vanilla in the air fuses with his cologne, urging me to blindly kiss and teasingly swirl my tongue along his neck before teasingly nipping the skin. Giulio allows it for a split moment until he takes over my mouth with a sweet, unapologetic kiss. It’s a giddy reminder of where we are and everything we will be.

  Giulio does everything so sensually right. I feel all of him and it’s so intense and intimate—so good.

  Our bodies belong together.

  They always have.

  Always will.

  “I hate doing life without you.”

  “So do I, amore. We never have to again.”

  The intensity grows and our moans with it until they are the loudest they can be without waking the kids. The blindfold brings sweet anticipation. It’s there as his hand glides by my waist, electrifying my tight skin until he grips my jaw and peppers it with kisses.

  All of a sudden Giulio’s sensational grin is all I see as the blindfold is taken off. We share an extended, beautiful moment of nothing but admiring the rising pleasure. My entire body is on fire as devotion sparkles in his gray-blue eyes.

  Our pace quickens and I tell him just how much I love him and how close I am to heaven.

  Giulio’s husky voice edges me even nearer. “Happy birthday, my girl.”

  A rush of ecstasy builds and I come undone the second his thumb circles my clit. A few last thrusts do it until his body tenses and he falls into elation, climaxing right with me. Too thrilled by the fact we’re now in each other’s life permanently, we can’t even speak through our panting.

  The beauty is that we don’t have to, this—our love—is enough.

  Giulio spins us so we’re side by side. Still inside me, he unties my wrists and kisses them a million times over. “Holy fuck, if that isn’t up there with the hottest things we’ve ever done.”

  “If this is how it’s going to be, I should tease you every second of every minute.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, baby…”

  “Oh, don’t you worry. I’ll keep it.” I chuckle, so happily in love. “I certainly will.”

  When we wrap our arms around each other, still buzzing from the high, he kisses my forehead slowly with the biggest grin and it’s all I need to know that everything is going to be okay.

  Now, when I look down at our wedding rings, it’s a stark reminder this isn’t a dream.

  This is all real life.

  The thought alone has me beaming, knowing that among all the derailments Giulio and I found our way back to each other and have solidified our healing with true love.

  All of our past desperation will lead us straight to Addilyn. I sincerely believe it because here in Giulio’s arms I confirm that hope is truly a tangible reality and what defines strength, the same strength we have gripped by the horns, is to keep on keeping on. To find silver linings. To never give up. To always see the beauty in every single tragedy.

  That is strength.

  Giulio

  “And this is Slonne,” I say, smiling as my daughter exaggerates her wave.

  My mother grins and picks up her granddaughter. “Aww, well aren’t you the sweetest! You’re such a good girl, aren’t you? Aw yes, you are! And I adore your brother too.”

  My heart warms at the sight in front of me. There is no fear. No death. No limits. My mother is here meeting the family I have created with Valencia. My mom’s right here. She’s alive—living and breathing.

  “I’m so proud of you both. Look how stunning this house is!”

  “It’s new. Mercer Island is where our family belongs now.”

  “My little boy has grown up to be the man I always knew he’d be. Strong. Dedicated. Passionate in love. You make me so happy every single day. I see it all, amore.”

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too. I love all of you!” My mother sets Slonne down and my daughter rushes away giggling. When my mom turns to me, her rich dark curls fall over her right shoulder. Those silver eyes with a touch of baby blue remind me of my own “But now I need to go.”

  “Stay a little longer.”

  “No, amore. I have to go.”

  “Please, Mom.” My heart tugs in my chest. “Don’t go yet. Stay for dinner.”

  Valencia steps by me, glowing as she clasps my mother’s hands. “Giulio’s right. We would love for you to stay longer.”

  “I know, dear. However, there’s something I must do. I promise I’ll come back soon.”

  “No.” I step forward in pain. “No, you won’t come back. I need you to be with us. I need to know Dad won’t hurt you again. I need to know you’re safe. Please, Mom.”

  “I’m safe, amore. I’ve been safe for a long while but now there’s something I need to return to you. A child. Your child. I’ve been protecting her but now she must be yours again. Go on without me because I’m okay and she’ll be yours again.”

  Addilyn.

  My daughter’s name gets caught in my throat.

  Valencia looks to me. “Addilyn is okay!”

  When we turn back, my mother is gone. We search room after room but she isn’t in the house. She’s gone. Gone. Gone. But with her departure, she took with her a weight from my chest.

  Her words echo; Go on without me because I’ll be okay and she’ll be yours again.

  Addilyn will be ours.

  “Baby?”

  I rise up to sitting in bed and a hand is circling my back. Valencia. My darling. She’s here.

  Scrubbing a hand over my face, I try to make sense of the dream that woke me. “I’m sorry…I…”

  “Are you okay, baby? You were tossing and turning. Did you have a bad dream?”

  “I’m alright now and I had the opposite.” I breathe and take a second to regroup.

  Fuck.

  It felt so real.

  When I lie back down, I hold Valencia, breathing in her sweet floral vanilla scent that brings me back to real life. “I had a dream similar to the one you had about finding Addilyn. Instead, this one was with my mother. She was visiting us in this house and told us that she couldn’t stay, but she was safe and needed to go somewhere. She said that she has been protecting Addilyn but now she must return her to us.”

  Lencia’s fingers caress my chest, drawing long calming strokes. “Maybe this is her way of saying goodbye. You said that you’ve never dreamt about her since her passing, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, perhaps that was your mother’s way of saying that she’s safe and all this time has been up above guiding Addilyn back to us. Your mother was an incredible woman. A brave one and although I never met her, I feel like I know her.”

  Lencia’s wedding ring catches the moonlight and flares light up inside me. I
kiss her ring and then her lips tenderly. When I pull back to brush strands of her hair away from her face, I smile knowing that it all makes sense…

  That my life has panned out the way it was supposed to.

  That life is already written out for us and at times we just have to let go and follow its motions.

  That this right here is my given custom life and I will love Valencia and my children until my very last breath.

  This I know.

  I never thought a woman like this existed. Valencia Leitner, now Valencia Giannotti, was never in my plans as a young boy hurting from his mother’s death and father’s torment. Yet life gave me the most precious gift. The gift of sharing my life with the most inspiring woman and our three loving children. The gift of owning a successful architecture and interior design business. The gift of simply being me.

  I will continue to thank the world every single day for these blessings.

  “You know if we weren’t already married, I would marry you all over again.”

  She giggles sweetly. “You have me, Giulio. You have me.”

  “Thank you for always knowing what to say.”

  “Thank you for making me sane.”

  My lips perk up. “Our daughter needs us and I have a gut feeling she’ll be with us soon.”

  Valencia jumps at my phone alarm that bursts through the room. “Sweet God!”

  “Sorry, baby.” I laugh, reaching over to my bedside and stop the buzzing.

  The smile isn’t wiped off my face at the 6:30 A.M. wake up, but rather at three texts from over half an hour ago.

  Bryce: Since when did you make six o’clock meetings a part of the job? This meeting better be fucking biblical, mate. It’s far too early. Hurry your ass down here!

  Lance: We’re all here. Just waiting on you, man.

  Lance: Hey…you haven’t showed. Where are you? Is everything okay?

  What on earth are they on about?

  My brows furrow as I show Valencia the texts. We share a confused look seconds before her ringtone begins blears. She quickly reaches over and taps the answer button.

  “Woah, Helena, slow down…” Valencia’s nose scrunches up cutely as silence takes over.

  My sister-in-law isn’t even on speaker and I can hear her loud, panicked voice. I inch closer to my wife who hits speaker to Helena’s frantic words and hands me her phone. “I’m telling you they’re showing it everywhere! Put it on the news, it’s on right now.”

  “What’s on?” I ask with a raging heart.

  “Oh my good god! Giulio, switch on the TV and you’ll see it.” Helena advises with a sharp sigh. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I’m just shocked and…so sorry.”

  I switch on the television to the early morning news and my heart drops to my stomach at what I see. Beside me comes a shocked gasp as Valencia covers her opened mouth.

  Oh my…

  Fuck.

  FUCK.

  BREAKING:

  NOTTI DESIGN WAREHOUSE ABLAZE AFTER SUSPECTED ARSON.

  REPORTS OF FOUR EMPLOYEES CRITICALLY INJURED IN FIRE.

  Shit.

  Sure enough, the broadcasting is Live from my property. There are hovering helicopters shooting footage over the brightly burning design warehouse—my warehouse.

  Helena hangs up and I remain paralyzed from the heavy words just muttered from the phone in my hands, staring at the television. Valencia is there to take the phone and when my eyes land on hers there is a strain in my heart that projects my greatest fear; more people getting hurt.

  Suspected arson.

  Four employees critically injured.

  With our nakedness colliding, she straddles my hips and says the words I have said to her all along. I shut my eyes at the softness of her hands against my three-day stubbled jaw and the void her touch fills. “I’m with you, Giulio. You are not going through this alone, I’m here.”

  My fingertips run up and down her spine, awakening my skin further. “I just wanted a weekend without any hassle. A weekend just for us. Why is that so hard?”

  “You already gave me everything and more yesterday. I had the best time with you, but your work and employees are just as important. Helena can look after the kids while we head back to Seattle. And don’t worry, the goodness will always overrule the bad.”

  “You’re an angel.” I look up and find her with a placid smile. “My golden angel.”

  I see the new confidence in her and I adore it. I love how much we’ve both grown and strengthened during the toughest period of our life. Our vulnerabilities coming to light have led us to this moment. There is nobody else I want to go through this with but with my Valencia.

  “We’ll do just that.” My lips brush against hers when her hips rock forward. It makes my entire world spin. “But first make me forget, darling. Make me forget every single thing around us—”

  Ding-dong.

  The doorbell breaks my train of thought.

  What the hell is going on?

  I can tell by Valencia’s wide eyes and my own peculating thoughts that we already know who’s at our front door… Is this the moment our family has been waiting for, for the past seven months?

  I kiss her and tell her to stay in the bed while I rush to slip on my boxers, slacks and creased dress shirt. There’s another ring of the doorbell as I’m jogging to the front door, flicking on the lights on my way.

  Two officers meet my gaze on the other side of the door.

  Finally, some answers.

  But then it all stops for me…because the officer on the left looks familiar. Those deep-set beady eyes that stare into my soul. I swear I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I cannot pinpoint where.

  “Officers, what is going on? Do you have any leads? Are we going to the warehouse?”

  The officer on the left shakes his head and inches closer to me. While I’m the one looking down at him, there’s something about him I don’t like…judgement.

  He flashes me his badge. “No, Mr. Giannotti. The only place you’re going right now is to the police department for questioning over the suspected arson of Notti Design’s warehouse.”

  What?

  My brows furrow. “Questioning? Why for questioning?”

  “Mr. Giannotti…” The officer scoffs with an arrogant shake to the head. “You already know what’s going on. You know.”

  “Know what exactly?” I glance to the other officer who’s taken a backseat to the conversation and instead rakes his gaze from my security guard, to the house and then back to me. “Look, could you kindly tell me what is going on? I just woke up to news that my warehouse is up in flames!”

  “We have reason to believe you were in fact involved in the suspected arson, Mr. Giannotti. As I previously stated, we’re going down to the police department for questioning.”

  “You think I did this? I didn’t do anything! I was asleep with my wife!”

  “That will all be further determined down at the department. Now, are you going to cooperate with us, or are we going to call backup?” He steps closer, trapping me in a whiff of torturing tobacco. His stare burns straight through me, so deep it makes me remember my father. “And trust me, you don’t want me to call backup….not when that wife of yours is right there.”

  I note the presence of Valencia behind me and all of a sudden everything clicks.

  This officer…he used to be my father’s right-hand man—Craig Jones. It’s been over fourteen years since I saw him last. What is he trying to do to me? Pin me for a crime I didn’t do in order to get back at me for his corrupt closest friend being dead…?

  Try me, bastard.

  I’m saved by Sergeant Flynn who steps into the small interrogation room after a solid fifteen minutes of being wrongfully questioned by Officer Craig Jones. My father’s friend had been asking me the same few questions and spun them around with hopes I would break. Deep down he probably has some type of suspicion about me after my father’s death. But it doesn’t c
oncern me and neither do any of his questions regarding my warehouse because I’m fucking innocent.

  Craig takes his send off with a death glare and I uncross my arms over my chest when Sergeant Flynn steps in. After much fewer questions, he establishes I wasn’t involved in the suspected arson and that I am telling the truth, prompting the pending investigation to go forth.

  It is brought to my attention that firefighters have been battling the inferno at the Notti Design Warehouse for the past hour. Bryce, Kayla, Lance and Marcus have all been critically injured. Apparently, an email sent from my account urged them there for an early morning team meeting and once they were all inside, doors were locked and an inferno ignited.

  When Valencia and I arrive at Notti Design’s warehouse, the scene is much more dire than I imagined. Firetrucks, police cars, and the press are warming everywhere. The fire is easing, but dark ash and burned merchandise line every step. This clean-up bill will be in the millions, more with all the décor perished, but I don’t care about the money, all I care about is everybody being alive and safe.

  All I need to know is that they’ll all be okay.

  We enter the burn unit at the hospital and walk through to the first room the lady at the desk directed us to. This entire situation is surreal, accompanied by a sinking feeling in my gut.

  Valencia rushes to pull Kayla into an embrace. Thankfully she’s stable and only suffers from a few minor burns to her legs. She was the first person the firefighters located and were able to rescue. She tells us with a bright smile that she will recover soon and none of this is our fault. Her optimism runs deep and she makes a joke about this finally luring her boyfriend to fly in to see her.

  Next is Lance Hilton—my closest friend. To see such a dignified man lying in a hospital bed with bandages on his forearms and leg shatters me. I wish I could take away the pain.

  I shake my head upon arrival and squeeze his shoulders. “I can’t believe this, man. I’m so sorry. How are you feeling?”