Saved Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Clara
It’s been three weeks since the attack. Nick Prince is gone, but Gavin isn’t satisfied. This morning I got up and decided that the two of us needed to get out of our normal routine, so I packed a picnic lunch and made him take me to the park.
The weather is gorgeous, the sun feels like heaven on my face, and there’s a slight breeze that is just strong enough for some kids across the park to fly their kites. Most of them are terrible at it, but there’s one kid who managed to get their kite up right away and it flies so high above us that it looks like a tiny green square.
Gavin’s got my head in his lap and keeps running his fingers through my hair. I swear, if he keeps it up, I might just fall asleep right here and now, but I don’t think that he’d mind. He’d probably love knowing that I trust him enough to sleep on him.
Even though he told me that he’d be happy to hire a cook to put together the picnic, there wasn’t any way that I was going to let that happen. I got everything we needed at the farmer’s market and took care of it myself, baking chocolate chip cookies last night and packing the basket with sandwiches, cookies, fresh fruit, and parfaits that I made this morning.
It’s heaven. This, right here, with my head in the lap of the man I love, is heaven.
“You’re not happy,” I say, when I hear him sigh. I know that he’s going nuts since I asked him not to check his phone while we were on the picnic. When he doesn’t answer, I sit up and kiss him, digging my nails into the nape of his neck a little as I do. “Gavin. What’s going on? Nick is gone. The threat is over. We seriously don’t have to worry about anything right now.”
He kisses me back but then shakes his head. “Nick is gone,” he agrees, “but the threat isn’t over. We still don’t know who turned us over to him, who gave us up. Someone out there was more than happy to feed him information and sell us out but we don’t know who it is. The three of us aren’t going to stop until we figure it out.”
My heart sinks. “I want this to be over,” I say.
“I know. And I do too, but if there’s someone out there who’s willing to hurt our family—to hurt you—then I have to do whatever it takes to stop them. I don’t give a shit who they are, they fed Nick information that led to everything that happened. If that hadn’t happened then we would have been able to handle it on our own time.”
And I wouldn’t have had to kill someone.
The thought makes me shiver, but Gavin squeezes my hand, pulling me out the spiral. He’s been there for me this entire time, no matter if I start crying randomly while making dinner or wake up in the middle of the night sweating and terrified.
“But you don’t think that they’d try again, do you? Nick is dead, my family is dead and gone, and there’s no benefit to trying to hurt me now.”
“I think they’ll lick their wounds and hide for as long as possible,” Gavin agrees. “They’d be stupid to try to sell us out again, and you’re right, there really isn’t a buyer.”
We fall silent for a moment and watch the kid flying the kite. Something swells in me and I know that it’s the desire to have kids some day, even though I’ve never told Gavin that’s how I feel.
“I want kids.” The words are out of me before I realize that I’m even going to say them. Gavin turns, looking studiously at me, and I blush. “I’m sorry, I know that now is not really the time or the place to talk about it, but I want them someday. I want to have a family with you, Gavin. I want to be happy and fill a house with kids. I want to travel and show them everything. I want to read books at night and paint tiny toenails and have a helper in the kitchen who eats half of the bag of chocolate chips before they even make it into the cookie dough.”
The words are spilling out of me now like the dam has shattered and there’s no holding them back, but Gavin doesn’t look upset. If anything, he looks...pleased.
“What?” I say, feeling self-conscious. “You’re laughing at me.”
He shakes his head. “Not laughing.”
“Then what?” It’s childish, and I know it, but I cross my arms on my chest and lean away from him a little bit. I need to put physical space between the two of us so that I can think straight. When I’m close to him I just want to kiss him.
“I’m just really happy to hear you say all of that, because it’s what I want, too.” He shifts a little and then pulls something from his pocket, holding it out to me.
At first, my brain won’t let me realize what it is.
“Clara, marry me. You belong to me and we both know it, and it’s time to make it official. Let me give you my name, give you my body and my soul. Make me the happiest man in the world.”
I’m dumbfounded, my gaze flicking back and forth between the man I love and the ring in his fingers. It’s perfect, the diamond so sparkly that I feel like everyone in the park must be able to see him holding it. And then when I look at him, I realize that I would willingly take the ring from him if it were made of clay.
“Are you serious?” I manage, doing my best to keep from crying. I feel the tears starting to sting the corners of my eyes and I try to fight them back. “Seriously? You want to marry me?”
“And then have a lot of babies with you. I’ll ask you again, Clara, but I’d rather not. I’d rather just get your answer right now. Will you marry me and be my wife? Have a family with me? Make me the happiest man in the world?”
I can’t speak. There are literally no words that I can use right now to tell him how damn happy I am, so instead I kiss him. The ring is right there between the two of us and I know that he wants me to slip it on my finger, but all I want is to feel his lips on mine.
“Is that a yes?” He asks, breaking the kiss after a minute and pulling away. “Please tell me that that was a yes, Clara, there’s no way in hell that I can live a moment without you.”
“Yes,” I say, and my voice surprises me when it doesn’t shake quite the way that I thought it would. “I’ll marry you, Gavin. I’ll marry you!”
He slips the ring on my finger and it’s a perfect fit, just like I knew that it would be. Everything about the two of us is a perfect fit, from how we interact with each other, to what it feels like when he fucks me. It’s the right thing, all of it, all of it making me happier than I ever thought that I could be.
Or deserved to be.
“There’s one more thing that I want to give you,” he tells me, turning and lifting the picnic basket. How he got a manilla folder under there without me seeing it, I don’t know, but I take it when he hands it to me.
“Is this a gift for marrying you?” I ask. My fingers tremble a little bit and I’m afraid to open it and see what’s inside, but Gavin shakes his head.
“No. I was going to give this to you either way, but I wanted to see that ring on your finger as soon as possible. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to wait any longer.” He kisses me, his fingers lingering on my neck and making me shiver. When he touches me like this I can’t help but start to think really terrible thoughts that would most definitely get us kicked out of the park. “Open it, Clara.”
I take a deep breath and then do, flipping it open quickly like I’m ripping off a bandaid. At first, the papers are so confusing that I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I take a few more breaths and try to concentrate.
That’s when it all makes sense.
“Is this...” I ask, then stop. “Seriously, Gavin, is this what I think it is?”
“It is.” Leaning closer, he taps the top sheet of paper. “Your parents are gone, Clara, and you’re the sole heir. All of their assets—their accounts, their cars, their house—it’s all yours.”
“It’s all mine,” I repeat, running my fingers across the paper like touching it is going to make this feel more real. It doesn’t, and I shake my head. “I don’t want the house. Or the cars.”
“You don’t have to have them,” he tells me. “We can sell them.”
I nod. “And how much money?”
He flips the paper for me and points and I suck in a breath, unsure that I can really believe my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I murmur. There are a hell of a lot of zeroes on the page. “What do I do with all of this?”
“Well, for starters, you can keep it and give it to the kids,” he says. “Or you can give it away. I have more than our family could ever use, and you don’t need to worry about affording anything. It’s your money, Clara. You get to decide what you want to do with it.”
I flip the folder closed. “I’ll think about it,” I tell him. I think that I sound calm but I’m pretty sure that my stomach is tied up in knots. For so long, I needed money like this. I needed money to keep me afloat and I didn’t have it. Now I have it but I don’t want it. The only thing that I want is the man sitting next to me.
