not stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. He would be wise to keep Tobias close because his future is a deadly one. Then he turns to me and pulls me in for a hug, whispering, “Don’t be a stranger, Lorenzo.”
Then he leaves without a backward glance and I watch the usual circus close around him before they disappear into the darkness.
Tobias turns and smiles. “Maybe now is the time to settle our own family business.”
He looks at Sophia with a gentle expression and I can tell he loves her a great deal. She is tense and must be wondering what’s happening, and Tobias says in a gruff voice. “I called Maverick and asked him to meet us here for a reason.”
“You called him?”
Sophia turns and looks at me in surprise and I nod. “As it happens, I was here anyway, waiting to beg you to come back with me.”
“But…”
Sophia is speechless, which causes Tobias to laugh loudly. “That’s something you don’t see very often.”
Ana nudges him and Tobias leans forward and takes his sister’s hands. “Sophia, you are my sister and the only thing I want is your happiness. I can tell that Maverick makes you happy, but I am in agreement with his grandmother.”
Sophia looks worried and he smiles sympathetically. “You have just met and yet are prepared to give everything up for love. I called Maverick to give my blessing for you to return with him to the Reapers and take it slowly and discover if this is really what you both want. You will always have a home with me, but it’s time for you to spread your wings and fly. Maverick has also been set free to find himself and both families want this union to work because Maverick’s grandmother sees your union as one of love and wants nothing more than for her grandson to be happy. If he is, she will be happy because she is hoping for a grandchild to care for sooner rather than later.”
I roll my eyes as Sophia colors up and blushes prettily. Then she turns to me and says shyly, “Is this what you want?”
“You know it is.” I pull her close and brush my lips against hers and whisper, “I’m taking you home, darlin’.”
36
Sophia
As soon as our business was concluded, Tobias and Ana retired to their cabin, leaving me and Maverick alone for the first time in what feels like a lifetime ago. As we sit wrapped in each other arms, on the deck of the Island Star, with the gentle lap of the waves as the only sound, I can’t quite believe Maverick is here. It’s like the most fabulous dream and I can’t get close enough to him and it appears he feels the same way because he growls, “Never leave me again, Sophia, it hurts too much.”
“Leave you? I never left willingly. Your grandmother arranged it, telling me that things had changed and you were giving it all up to live with the Reapers. She told me I had no place in that and was being sent back to my brother.”
I still feel so hurt as the memory of rejection comes back for a visit and Maverick shakes his head angrily. “She had no right to interfere. She wanted to use you to bring me back to the family and when she saw it wouldn’t work, decided to make my life as empty as possible, hoping I would give up and return home. I’ve only just learned that she even changed your number in my phone, which she subsequently had disconnected. She knew that if I had you beside me, I had everything I wanted in the world and I expect she was going to use you in the future to bring me home again.”
“But why, surely she just wants your happiness?”
“You forget, Sophia, family is everything to the Romanos and they can’t understand that a member of the family could be happy outside it. Their plan backfired when you said no and I threatened them. This was their Plan B and as it turned out, they got more than they bargained for. Dante’s problem will keep them busy for a while, leaving us to see where we go from here.”
“Where do you want that to be?”
I’m almost fearful to ask but have my answer when he kisses me deeply and says roughly, “I want it all, darlin’. Marriage. Babies, a little home set in the grounds of the Rubicon and