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June 18 - June 19, 2025
Everything he wanted, it all existed outside of Hightower. His old life, his family, his revenge. And most importantly, Camilla Marchese.
“Nicolai Roman Attano.” He lifted my hand with his real one, kissed the velvet lining my knuckle, and I hardly dared to breathe. “But you can call me Nico.”
“You have yourself a deal, Attano.”
“The government here has no such authority to ban your abilities. We have a democracy, these things are taken to a vote, and I’d like to think the lifestyle is more progressive here than it is on the mainland.”
Apparently, he hadn’t expected me to be so well educated on the history of the descendants and their immigration to the Isle.
“If there is no war, princess, there is no need for your train. Help me solve this problem, and we can both return to our sides of the city.”
There were no kings on the Isle, but war gave opportunities for those kinds of things to change.
“Not anymore, princess. I’m your daddy now.”
His black eyes widened. “You married—” “Nicolai Roman Asshole Attano,” I replied with a grimace. “Yes, don’t remind me.”
“There are three aunts, one uncle, and a grandmother. Fran and Solomon are married, their children being Esme, Adler, and Gideon. The only couple remaining are Lucinda and Ianthe. They have an adopted son, Luther.”
Un cancidamus orbitur.
“It means where we fall, we rise.
“You aren’t my worst investment, but you are certainly the most surprising.”
“And not only did she turn out to be a fucking Marchese, a name I once hated more than anything else on this Isle, she had to make it worse by being so unbelievably perfect. The object of all my frustrations and desires, the one I can’t go an hour without thinking about. Tell me, Milla, am I supposed to regret you now? After all we’ve been through, tell me none of it was worth finding each other.”
“I would do it all again,” he said in the absence of my denial. “I would run through fire and burn for you. I would lose arm and leg and limb. I’d do it all over, knowing what would happen to me, if it meant eventually having you as I do now. Milla, I don’t regret anything about you but this,” he spoke in a strained voice, as if holding back a river of temptation, “that now that I finally have you, I must give you up.”
“I’ve spent nearly a decade now trying to fix the past, but for the first time since I lost my family, I think about the future—a future with you. I thought my heart and my head were too broken to care for anyone, that this hole in my existence could only be filled with retribution and power.
“Now there is a weight there, and it gets heavy when you are gone. You are what I want every morning when I wake, every need of my flesh, every dream when I close my eyes.”
“Fuck it. I’ve fallen hard for you Camilla Mercy Marchese-Attano. I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me or anyone else you have my name and my heart and the rest of my life. You are mine, and I am wholly and irrevocably yours.”
