His: Tony: The Sabatini Family by Fiona Murphy (sneezy the snowman read aloud TXT) 📕

my face, his thumbs wiping away my tears. “As long as you're with me, I can always see you. And once you have our baby, I'm sure there will be days when you want to kill me, but I know you won't. You won't dare.”

I swear if he hit me, it couldn’t have hurt worse. “That's what our baby will be? A keep-me-from-killing- you card?”

He sighs as he closes his eyes. When he opens them, I’m locked in and can’t look away. “No, it will be the thing that ties us together for the rest of both of our lives. The family I have always wanted and never truly had.”

My heart aches all over again for the loss of the dream he once held. A dream I had not long ago too. The dream, for me was three children in a home with a big backyard. I longed for two boys and a girl who would know they were the most important thing and I loved them unconditionally. I can’t keep from reaching out to him. When my hand goes to his cheek, he leans down, and his forehead meets mine as his hands grip my head tighter. He’s everything I see, feel, and breathe. Not a single thing in my entire life has felt so right, so perfect, as this moment.

“A woman that wants me and wants to be with me. A woman that wants children the way I do. This started fucked up, it doesn’t have to stay that way. The reason you believe now you could never kill me is because you know you belong to me. Feel it the same as I do. As time goes on, and we learn each other and we have our baby—and hopefully a few more—this will become stronger until you could never bring yourself to hurt me because to do so would hurt you too.”

Longing builds in me even as fear and shame hover at the edge of what he promises. “But you’re only doing this because you don’t want to worry about me killing you. That makes it feel so wrong. I don’t think—”

Blue flashes so dark it’s almost black as his grip on my head tightens. “Don’t fucking think. You had your chance, and you fucked up. This isn’t up to you anymore.”

I pull back. “My life isn’t up to me?”

“No.” The word is hard. “You said it yourself. You walk away from me and you have no idea how the hell you’re going to get from one day to the next. You don’t know. I do. You’re going to have my kids, be my woman, and you’re going to make this a home again. Shit will get hard from time to time as we both adjust. Your place is here with me. Five, ten, twenty years from now, how we started will be a footnote barely worth remembering.”

Holy shit, he really believes it.

“This isn’t up for discussion. This is happening. You can either accept it like a good girl or fight me and piss me off.” God, he reads me like I’m an open book. “Do you really want to walk away from me? Do you really believe you could be happy away from me and the way I make you feel?”

I don’t even have to think. The shake of my head isn’t something I can stop. The very thought of it stings in a way I hadn’t thought possible. “It’s just, you’re making plans I don’t know I can fulfill. I’ve wanted a baby for the last five years and it hasn’t happened. I’m not sure I can take losing another one,” I whisper. I can’t meet his eyes, ashamed of how much of a coward I am.

“Hey,” Tony catches my chin and forces me to look him in the eye. “That was then. This is now. This is with me. You couldn’t have a baby with him because you were never meant to have a baby with him. I’ll give you what he couldn’t. Everything you want and need, I’m going to give to you.”

It’s a promise he seals with a kiss.

As Tony pulls away, I’m dazed. He turns his head. He says something in Italian. I turn to find Dominic watching us, an eyebrow up as he also responds in Italian. I’m going to have to learn the language as of yesterday.

“This is Christy, my woman. She moved in today and will be here from now on.”

Dominic does that exhale laugh thing Tony does as he looks at me intently. “You sure you don’t want me to leave?”

Tony nods as he picks me up and sets me on wobbly legs. A smack of my ass sends me away from him. “Sit,” he orders me. To Dominic, “A scramble okay? Or I have some leftover gnocchi.”

Dominic takes off his suit jacket and puts it across the back of a chair. “Scramble sounds good.”

As I sit down across from Dominic, it’s a little weird how much he looks like his father. Dominic has dimples in both cheeks, while Tony only has one in his right. Their main difference is that Dominic is leaner, still muscular, no doubt. However, his chest isn’t quite as wide. It’s like seeing Tony only almost twenty years younger.

He looks directly at me, “Are you as young as I think you are?” The question is curious, yet there’s a slight edge to it I can’t define.

“I’m thirty as of a few months ago,” I admit. It’s hard not to shrink beneath his hard gaze, but I refuse to. If I do now, he’ll run over me without hesitation. I have no doubt he will anyway but I’m not going to back down at our first meeting.

His eyes run over me. A slight shake of his head. “What are you doing with my father?”

An espresso cup is set down in front of Dominic with a thump and a growl comes out of Tony. I don’t drop my eyes from blue eyes so like