Dante sighed and hugged me close to his body. “I’m sorry, Heath. God, I wish I could go back and do it over, keep you with me.”
I tilted my head to the side and kissed his neck. “But also I didn’t know how to help you, after the fire. I just wanted to be what you needed.”
“I thought I’d failed you,” Dante admitted in a small voice. “I thought I’d failed everyone. I let you get hurt twice. I couldn’t save the bakery. I felt like… How could I be the Dom you needed—no, the man you needed—when I’d let so much shit go wrong? How could I trust myself to take care of you when I couldn’t even take care of my club?”
“You didn’t let me get hurt. They hurt me. And they burned down the bakery. You’re not responsible for someone else’s actions, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up for not being able to predict how crazy they were.” I was surprised at the steadiness in my own voice, and how much I wanted him to believe me. “And I don’t need you to take care of me. I want you to. It’s different.”
“How so?” Dante’s hands traced idle patterns on my forearm.
“You don’t have to be perfectly in control all the time,” I said. “You’re allowed to hurt, or to have moments when you’re not okay. I won’t think less of you—I want to be there for you, too.”
Dante pressed a hard kiss to my temple. “I need that. I need you.”
“You have me,” I said. “I should’ve told you what I wanted earlier. But it was scary, you know? It was too hard for me to believe you might actually want me.”
“I was too scared to admit how badly I wanted you,” Dante said. “I was so afraid of getting my heart broken again, and falling apart, not being who my club needed me to be.”
“And I was afraid you didn’t want anything serious. But now… you make me feel wanted in a way I’ve never felt before,” I admitted even as my cheeks heated. “When you take care of me. And tell me what to do. It makes me feel safe… secure and valued. Like finally, I know there’s someone who cares about me.”
“I do,” Dante said. “I meant what I said. I want to be with you. For real.”
My heart fluttered in my chest. “What does that mean to you?”
“I want to rebuild with you,” Dante said. “Together, in every way. As lovers, partners, Dom and sub, and… I need a business manager.”
I sat up away from his chest enough to meet his eyes over my shoulder. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Dante said with a smile. “If you want to. You’ve helped so much just organizing my mess. But there are a lot more improvements that could be made.”
“Of course I want to,” I said and I turned around in his arms and kissed him deeply. “But—Custom.”
Dante nodded. “I know. I don’t want to pull you away from Custom. I know you want to be more involved there—and you should be, you’ve put in a lot of work.”
“I promised Maverick,” I said. And as much as I loved Dante, I couldn’t break a promise to one of my brothers.
“I was thinking I could hire you as a consultant,” Dante said with a slight flush, like he remembered my teasing from all that time ago. “Just for a month or two when we’re about to reopen. To help me reset everything. And then we could go from there.”
My stomach somersaulted. Consulting. It was perfect—a perfect way for me to dip my toes in and see what the workload was like. Maybe, one day, I could balance Stella’s and Custom.
“Of course. I’d love to—I’m going to change so much,” I said with no small amount of glee. “Your books are going to be immaculate.”
“Sounds great, as long as you leave me completely out of it,” Dante said with a low laugh. “And…” he trailed off, running his hand up and down the line of my spine. “I was thinking you could… leave some things at my place. If you want to. It doesn’t even have to be right away. But, you know. There’s plenty of space.” His face flushed a little. “And not only because it’ll help to have you closer with the rebuilding process, but because I’m serious about this. About us.”
His gaze was steady, but a little nervous. Like he thought I’d