I wear his name like a scar.
Alessandro Rossi stole everything from me; my freedom, my future, the lie I told my father to keep him alive. He thinks I'm a tool to be used, a bride to be displayed, a Fraga to be broken. He thinks the ring on my finge...
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The Tuscan dawn was still hours away when Alessandro's lips brushed my ear.
"Wake up, principessa."
His voice was rough with sleep, low and warm, settling somewhere deep in my chest and refusing to leave. I groaned and buried my face deeper into the pillow. The sheets were cool. The bed was too comfortable. And my husband, apparently, had decided that sleep was for people who didn't have sunrise agendas.
"It's still dark," I mumbled into the pillow. "The sun hasn't even committed to waking up yet. Why should I?"
"Because I'm asking, baby." His hand found my hip beneath the sheets, thumb tracing lazy circles against my skin. "And because I have something to show you."
I cracked one eye open. He was propped on his elbow beside me, hair disheveled, jaw already shadowed with stubble, eyes dark and warm in the dim light filtering through the shutters. Five years of marriage. Five years of waking up beside this man. And still, the sight of him like this—unguarded, soft around the edges, looking at me like I was the only thing in the world worth seeing—made my heart stutter.
"Something better than sleep?" I asked.
"Marginally."
"That's a high bar."
"I'm aware." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my bare shoulder. "Trust me."
I trusted him. That was the miracle of it, really. After everything—the forest, the gun, the forced vows, the blood and the fear and the long, jagged road that had led us here—I trusted Alessandro Rossi with my life. With my heart. With every sunrise he wanted to show me.
I let him pull me out of bed.
He wrapped me in one of his linen shirts before we slipped out of the villa. The stone floors were cool beneath my bare feet. The house was silent—twenty-three people under one roof and not a single one of them awake. No children shrieking. No Santino bellowing about missing espresso. No Giada humming in the kitchen. There was just the soft hush of the Tuscan countryside and the man leading me through it by the hand.
He took me to the highest point of the estate, a stone terrace perched at the edge of the vineyards. The valley stretched below us in shades of silver and shadow, olive groves and cypress trees and the distant shimmer of a lake still half-asleep. The sky was just beginning to change—that pale, hesitant transition from black to indigo, the first whisper of gold bleeding at the horizon.
Alessandro settled onto the stone bench and pulled me into his lap without ceremony. His arms wrapped around my waist. His chin rested on my shoulder. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We just watched the world wake up.
"The twins are going to be furious they weren't invited," I murmured.
"Serena would have demanded a full breakfast spread. Juan-Axel would have asked me forty questions about how the sun works." His lips brushed my temple. "I wanted you to myself, baby. Just for an hour. Is that a crime?"
