“No.”
“No.”
Both Antonio and Rafael spoke in unison, each vehemently refusing his mate’s nickname.
Eliana sighed, giving Lili a we’re-in-this-together look. “You’re Liliana and never Lili to Antonio, right?”
Lili wiggled one eyebrow at Antonio. “Yeah, and he has exclusive rights to it. So y’all better call me Lili if you want to remain on your doctor’s good side.”
“It’s clear to me why Antonio is falling over himself to marry you.” That was Richard Graves. Not Antonio’s brother, but his partner, the one who smothered them all in security measures, who used to be Rafael’s handler. The Brit was the perfect combination of suave and grit, a Bond/Lancelot hybrid. His hand laced with Isabella’s, his wife and a surgeon herself, his body touching hers from shoulder to calf, as if he couldn’t be away from her. It was weird, since the guy looked as cold as a cobra. “You’re a combination I didn’t think existed, but exactly what would bowl him over. You must have mowed him down without even trying.”
“That she did.” Antonio laughed, looking down at her adoringly. “I’m down for the count. For life.”
“That’s what you guys do. Even those who resist their fate for years.” Isabella pinched Richard, who growled and buried a kiss in her neck. She giggled, looking at Lili. “When they give in and give you their hearts, it’s yours forever. They’d conquer the world for you, live and die for you. They’re a bit scary, but each of them is one-of-a-kind and we can’t think how we lived before them.”
Richard squeezed his wife tighter as the other women fervently corroborated her statements and their husbands hugged them closer, too.
Lili looked up at Antonio, as usual finding his heart in his eyes, the heart he said he’d grown to love her with.
Pulling him down, she murmured against his lips, “I have no idea at all how.”
She surfaced from his drowning kiss to the hoots and claps of the couples, and the disgusted groans of Jakob Wolff, the guy who looked like a Viking marauder, and the only single brother around.
Antonio had just told them about his proposal last night. The ladies had insisted on meeting her at once, and the men had made their wishes come true without delay. They’d all converged on LA from wherever they’d been in the world, arriving at Antonio’s mansion one after the other. By the time they’d started arriving, Antonio had told her everything about their previous and current personas, and she’d memorized all the info.
The only one who was missing was Ivan Konstantinov, Antonio’s best friend. But he certainly wouldn’t have left the side of the woman Antonio had saved that first night she and Antonio were together. Antonio had told her they were missing another brother, but that she wouldn’t be seeing him. He’d left their brotherhood six years ago, vowing never to return. It seemed it had been an unspeakable falling-out, since Antonio, who’d so far shared the most horrendous stuff with her, wouldn’t say a word about why “Cypher” had left them.
Antonio had wanted their wedding to be three days from now, a whopping week after he’d proposed. But she’d convinced him it was either forgo a wedding completely, or if he wanted an actual party, they needed at least a month. Adamant that there was no way he wasn’t giving her a wedding, and reluctant about what he called an unbearable delay, he’d succumbed and set the date.
The evening proceeded in escalating mirth and harmony. Those juggernauts—who between them could rule the world and did to a great degree—and their gorgeous mates promised to be available at all times to help with the wedding preparations. Lili was so delighted with them all, his “family”, she kept thanking him for rounding them up for this impromptu engagement party, and thanking them for coming and for being this fantastic.
Everything was so amazing it made her feel she’d plunged into another level of the fairy tale she’d been living with Antonio since that day he’d changed her life. And every now and then one incredulous question floated in her mind.
Could anything in this world be that perfect?
Nine
“My father called again yesterday.”
The razor in Antonio’s hand stilled over his left cheek. The eyes that had been promising her another session of devastation in the mirror, clean-shaven this time, emptied.
Next second he refocused on shaving, grunting something vague.
Her heart slumped a notch in her chest.
His reaction to the subject of her father and her family was the only thing that marred the perfection they’d been sharing so far.