Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I fell in love with the most dangerous man in Rome, knowing exactly who he was. And he fell for me too, knowing one day he’d have to me or his empire.
He chose me.
As brutal as it was, I thought his exile would be good for us. I thought we’d find peace together in a small village outside of Rome, in the comfort of running his family’s restaurant and the promise of our future. In the life growing inside me.
But there’s no peace for a man like Constantine.
No matter where we go, his past will always follow. I see the war waging inside him—the need to protect us battling the urge to reclaim what was lost. To avenge what was taken.
Now, as deadly enemies threaten the empire and his friend clings to life, the decision is mine. Do I ask him to keep his promise and stay with me? Or do I set free the emperor Rome desperately needs?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter 1
Constantine
“Thanks for this, Santino.” I admired the contraption he’d made with Medusa’s measurements, a walker that would allow her three legs to move freely but her fourth to be supported with a wheel. We’d gone to school together, and he’d become a contractor and could pretty much build anything.
“So you’re in town for a while?” He crossed his arms over his chest before he leaned against the counter of his front office. His receptionist was in the back on her break.
“More than a while,” I said. “More like permanently.”
“Yeah?” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Your mother must be ecstatic.”
“Haven’t told her yet, but yeah, she will be.” Her scream would probably split my eardrums.
He pushed off the counter with his hips. “Let me know if it needs adjustments. Happy to swing by.”
“Thanks, man.”
I put the seats down in the back of my Range Rover, placed the walker inside, and then headed back toward Taormina, up the mountain over the village, where my villa was nestled on the cliff face. It was still an extraordinary property with nine thousand square feet divided among the three floors, but the palace had felt like a city in comparison. Sometimes it bothered me to know Darius was shitting in my toilet and fucking his whores in my bed . . . but I had what really mattered.
When I returned home, I carried the walker through the entryway and the main common room with twenty-foot-tall floor-to-ceiling windows that showed the sea in the distance. The main floor had two different living rooms, an office, and a formal dining room, and then upstairs was where the bedrooms were located.
Aurelia sat on the rug on the floor with her back to one of the couches, next to the dog bed, and she gave Medusa soft, loving strokes across her cheek to help her relax. A cup of coffee sat on the table, and it still wafted with steam like she’d just made it. She looked at the walker when I put it down in front of them. “Wow, that’s it?”
Medusa opened one of her eyes and stared at me, but she didn’t get up to greet me like she normally would. She was still in pain, even with the meds, so she wasn’t quite herself.
It killed me to see her like that, but I knew I just had to be patient and I’d see her running around again. “Yeah, now she’ll be able to get around on her own. I know she misses being a dog.”
She looked down at Medusa and stroked her cheek. “Yeah.”
Most women liked dogs, but they liked the little ones you could carry in one arm or stuff in your purse. Medusa was a full-grown seventy-pound German shepherd. More like a wolf than a dog. But I knew Aurelia loved Medusa as much as I did. I could see it in the way she cared for her as if she’d had her since she was a puppy. It was so real it couldn’t be faked. “Baby girl, let’s give this a try.” I patted my thigh so Medusa would get up.
She lay there and released a breath through her nostrils.
“Maybe later,” Aurelia said. “She’s having a hard time today.”
When I’d brought Medusa home, I’d just wanted a dog around the house. I never expected to love her like this, to feel like she was a piece of my heart outside of my body. I’d take another bullet to fix her broken leg if I could.
I moved to the other side of Medusa, my arm resting over the cushions of the couch so I could touch the back of Aurelia’s neck, and together, we sat with our dog.
Aurelia continued to pet her fur as she looked at me, wearing nothing but one of my T-shirts, without makeup, doing nothing else except caring for Medusa since she woke up. With the light coming through the windows before us, her eyes were lit up in a glorious way, and she was fucking stunning. “How’s your arm?”
“What do you mean?”
Her hand paused momentarily in Medusa’s fur. “You were shot, remember?”
“Oh, that,” I said with a smirk. “Yeah, I already forgot about it.”
Her eyes did that thing where they shifted back and forth frantically as if I’d just said something crazy. “Isn’t getting shot painful?”
“Not at all. Now getting a shot . . . that’s the worst.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Any time I’ve been shot, it’s been in the middle of chaos. Adrenaline is high and I’m focused on killing someone, so it’s impossible to feel anything. You just feel your body jerk back from the speed of the bullet, but that’s it. But when you need a shot at the doctor’s office, you just have to sit there and wait for them to stick a big-ass needle in your skin. It’s the worst.”