Chapter 35 · Already

"I already do."

The words are still sitting in the air between us when his hand comes up to my jaw, and I let him tip my face up like it's nothing, like three words don't just knock the floor out from under a room.

"Say that again," I tell him. "Slower. I want to make sure I heard the mob boss right."

"You heard me fine, Nora." His thumb drags along my cheekbone. His voice has gone low, rough at the edges, the kind of rough that means he's not performing for anybody, not the board, not the family, just me. "I already love you. Past tense on the falling. I landed a while ago."

My heart's doing something stupid and fast. I put my hand flat on his chest to feel it — his, not mine — and it's going just as hard.

"That's inconvenient," I say, "for a man who tore up a marriage contract to prove he didn't own me."

"Didn't stop owning the feeling.