Chapter 10 - THE PENTHOUSE AT NOON
The rain had finally cleared by twelve o'clock.
The clouds over Lake Michigan broke into wide streaks of brilliant, blinding blue.
Sunlight poured through the sixty-fourth-floor windows of the Vance Tower, casting warm, golden rectangles across the white marble floors.
The penthouse was silent.
No sirens.
No gunfire.
Only the quiet, steady hum of the central heating and the distant, muffled sound of city traffic far below.
In the private guest suite down the hall, Leo was fast asleep in an enormous king-sized bed.
His cheeks were rosy with health, his fever completely broken.
Beside his pillow sat a brand-new wooden train set that Viktor’s men had somehow procured from a luxury toy store at seven in the morning.
I stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass in the grand living room, wearing a soft gray cashmere sweater and dark trousers that Teresa Vance's staff had laid out for me.
My hair was dry, brushed, falling over my shoulders.
In my hand, I held a warm porcelain mug of coffee.
Not cheap instant grounds stirred with hot tap water.
Real, freshly roasted French roast.
Footsteps sounded on the hardwood corridor behind me.
Slow.
A little uneven.
The unmistakable click of a cane.
I turned around.
Roman stood in the archway.
He had refused to stay in the surgical recovery bed downstairs.
He wore dark flannel lounge pants and an unbuttoned charcoal cardigan over a fresh, clean white bandage that bound his ribs.
His skin was still pale from blood loss, his jaw covered in twenty-four hours of dark stubble, but his gray eyes were sharp, awake, and burning with quiet life.
"You're out of bed, Roman," I said softly, setting my mug on the side table.
"Dr. Aris told me he would chain you to the mattress if you tried to walk."
"Aris works for me," Roman murmured, taking two slow steps into the room.
"He knows better than to bring chains."
He stopped three feet from me.
He leaned slightly on the dark wooden cane in his right hand.
He looked at my face.
He looked at the clean sweater.
Then his eyes dropped to my left hand.
The platinum signet ring was sitting on the marble mantelpiece beside my coffee cup.
I had taken it off when I walked into the penthouse.
"You returned the ring," Roman said.
His voice was quiet.
Carefully neutral.
"It belongs to the head of the Vance family," I said.
"I was only borrowing it to talk to your harbor captain."
"It fits your finger, Megan."
"I'm a waitress, Roman."
"You haven't been a waitress since four-thirty yesterday afternoon," he said.
He reached into the pocket of his cardigan and pulled out a heavy manila envelope.
He laid it on the glass table between us.
"The deed to Laura," Roman said.
"The building."
"The land."
"The air rights above the property."
"Signed over to you and Leo."
My breath caught in my throat.
"I can't take that, Roman."
"Mark's trust has forty million dollars."
"I don't need your charity."
"It's not charity, Megan," Roman took half a step closer.
He set the cane against the side of the sofa, standing on his own two feet despite the agony it clearly cost his ribs.
"Four years ago, I let your husband walk out of my office because I thought I could handle Julian Cross alone."
"I was arrogant."
"I thought power meant keeping people at a distance."
He reached out.
His long, scarred fingers gently took my hand.
His skin was warm now.
Solid.
"You stopped in a filthy alley when every sane person in this city kept walking," Roman whispered.
"You held my wound shut with your bare hands."
"You saved my life twice in twenty-four hours."
He lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a slow, tender kiss to the center of my palm.
"I spent ten years building an empire so nobody could hurt me, Megan."
"And in forty-five minutes, you showed me that an empire is completely worthless if you're dying alone in the rain."
Tears pricked behind my eyelids, warm and sweet.
"What are you saying, Roman?"
"I'm saying the restaurant needs a new name," he murmured, his lips brushing my knuckles.
"And my home needs a family."
"Roman..."
"Stay here, Megan," he pleaded softly, his gray eyes searching mine with a vulnerability that laid his entire soul bare.
"Let me watch your son grow up."
"Let me stand between you and the dark."
Before I could answer, little footsteps pattered across the hardwood hallway.
"Mama?"
Leo stood in the doorway, rubbing his eyes with his fist, dragging his blue dinosaur blanket behind him.
He looked up at the towering man with the bandages around his chest.
Roman didn't flinch.
He didn't look like a mafia boss.
He slowly, carefully dropped down to one knee on the floor, holding his hand out toward my son.
"Hello, Leo," Roman said, his voice softer than I had ever heard it.
"I hear you like trains."
Leo looked at Roman's open hand.
Then he looked at the wooden train set sitting on the living room rug.
A wide, gap-toothed smile broke across my son's face.
Leo ran across the marble, throwing his small arms around Roman's neck, burying his head against the man's uninjured shoulder.
Roman’s arms wrapped around my boy, holding him tight, his eyes closing as a single tear escaped his lashes.
I stood beside them in the warm sunlight, looking out over the city that had tried to break us.
The storm was gone.
The debts were paid.
And for the first time in five years,
May you like
we were finally, truly home.
THE END
