by Penelope Sky
I rested my face against his shoulder and closed my eyes. “Babe, I’m okay.”
His arms shook as he held me. “No, you aren’t. I promised no one would ever touch you.”
“It’s my fault. He tried to take my necklace, and I fought him.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He kissed my forehead then ran his fingers through my hair. “The men couldn’t make it through the doors, so we had to bring in an explosive. If the windows weren’t bulletproof—”
“Babe, I’m fine.” I pulled away so I could look him in the eye. “It takes more than a black eye to slow me down.” I cupped his cheek, seeing the harsh pain in his eyes. If he hadn’t come to my rescue, I would be dead right now. On top of that, those men would have come back for me with worse intentions. “You saved my life.”
His fingers felt the swelling and the bruising around my eye before he kissed it.
It was the third time Bosco had saved my life. I went to this bank on a daily basis to deposit my profits. Not once had anything like this happened, and if it happened some other time, I probably wouldn’t have survived. There were a lot of things I wouldn’t have survived if this man weren’t looking out for me, constantly protecting me. Maybe it was the adrenaline or maybe it was the gratitude, but the words came out of my mouth. “I love you.”
The pain was still in his eyes from my injury, but they softened just a bit. “I know you do.”
“I was scared to say it. But I shouldn’t be because everything you said was right. You’ve proven your love for me a million times over…and you’re the only man in the world who deserves me.” All a father wanted for his daughter was a man who could protect her. Bosco fit the bill perfectly, even coming to my aid in person because he wasn’t afraid to put his life on the line. Bosco had other poor attributes, aspects that would be difficult to look past, but I knew the man underneath the money and power. He was kind, protective, and devoted. Admitting my feelings out loud made our situation so much more complicated, but it was already complicated.
Bosco watched me as his men cleaned up the area. They grabbed the dead bodies and dumped all the belongings that were in the bag so everyone could have their stuff back. But he seemed only to be focused on me. “Let’s go home.”
Bosco sat beside me at the dining table, pressing ice wrapped in a towel against my bruised eye. “You’re sure you don’t want to see a doctor?”
“I’m fine.”
He continued to hold it there, sighing quietly under his breath. He looked torn up inside, as if he could feel the injury on my face himself. He lightly pressed the ice against my cheek before he moved again. “I could get you something stronger.”
“I don’t need anything.” I could tough it out for a few days. The swelling would go down soon, and then the purple color would slowly fade away.
He set the towel down and fished out my necklace from his pocket. “This belongs to you.”
I didn’t care about my purse or the money from the shop. All I cared about was this gift my father gave me. It was probably worth more than all the money in my leather bag, but that wasn’t why I fought for it. It could be worth a quarter, and I still would have taken a black eye for it. “Thank you.” I clasped it back around my neck and felt the pendant with my fingertips.
Bosco stared at it for a while before he cleared his throat. “What are we going to do?”
I knew my father would be livid with the man I’d chosen. He would be even worse than Uncle Crow. My father was the one who punched Griffin in the face just for looking at me too long. His heart was in the right place, but his emotional outbursts made him impetuous and unpredictable. We never talked about my personal life, but that was because my father wanted to pretend I didn’t have a personal life. In his eyes, I was a virgin waiting for my husband to arrive, and until I brought that man home, he wouldn’t think about it.
He wouldn’t like Bosco at all.
With Griffin adding his opinion on the matter, there was no hope. Vanessa warned me this would happen, but I was too stubborn to realize she was right. My heart wasn’t as strong as I thought it was. I thought I could resist Bosco, and maybe I could have if he’d never confessed his love for me. “I don’t know…”
“You don’t know?” he whispered, staring at me with his head slightly tilted. “That doesn’t sound promising.”
“Just because I love you doesn’t mean anything has changed.”
His eyes immediately fell in disappointment.
“I already know how my father is going to feel about this, not to mention the rest of my family…”
“Your family isn’t the one who’s in this relationship. It’s you. You’re a grown woman, and it shouldn’t matter what they think. You’re so independent and free. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you. Submitting to their opinions goes against everything in your nature.”
“And if this were about me riding a motorcycle or traveling the world alone, I would agree with you. But Bosco, this is about…” I didn’t want to finish the sentence because it would make things more complicated. I refused to talk about marriage and kids this soon. “This sort of thing is a big deal in my family. And since my family means so much to me, I don’t want to ruin what I have. I have something everyone envies me for. I have two fathers and two mothers, and I have cousins who are siblings, and siblings who are like friends. It doesn’t matter how much I love you, I love my family more.” That was probably a hurtful thing to say, but I had to be honest.
He didn’t flinch at the statement. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Let’s start at the beginning and see where it goes.”
This man had just saved me—again. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to take a swing at his heart when he adored me. “Regardless of how we feel about each other, nothing has changed. We’re from two different worlds…and I see no scenario where they mix.” I couldn’t look him in the eye as I said it, all my courage stripped away. Maybe I loved this man and he loved me, but at the end of the three weeks, it would still be over.
He stared at me and patiently waited for me to meet his gaze.
But I refused to comply.
“So in three weeks, you still want to leave?”
I swallowed, my heart in so much pain I didn’t even notice the pain over my eye. “Yes.”
He gripped the towel, the cords on the back of his hand flexing all the way up his forearms. “Fine.”
My eyes turned back to him, shocked that he agreed so easily. I expected him to get angry, to tell me off for not giving him what he wanted. But instead, he accepted my decision without complaint. Something wasn’t right.
He held my gaze then pressed the towel back over my eye.
“And you’re just okay with that?” I whispered, refusing to believe he let me off the hook so easily.
He softly pressed the coldness against my swollen eye. “We both know you aren’t going to leave, Beautiful. I won’t stop you if you want to try, but there’s no way you’re gonna walk out that door. You love me too much. You need me too much. And more importantly, you can’t live without me.”
Also by Penelope Sky
The story concludes in…
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