She started to move, to look for her underwear, but Stefano pulled her down on top of him, so that she sprawled on his chest and he rolled slightly, tucking them both against the back of the long, wide couch. He caught up the remote and turned on the television. She wasn’t much of a television watcher, but she decided that didn’t matter. Lying on top of Stefano, surrounded by his unique masculine scent and his incredible, very hard muscles, his fingers playing in her hair, she decided, was the best.

Francesca closed her eyes and let herself drift. Her ear was over his heart. He was warm and his hands in her hair felt soothing. She may have fallen asleep for a time, but she woke when she heard the newscaster’s voice on the television set. No, it hadn’t been the voice that woke her. Stefano’s muscles had contracted, rippled beneath her in reaction, just for a moment, but she was so in tune with him she felt the difference, the alertness immediately.

“In local news, a group of schoolchildren out on a field trip stumbled across a gruesome scene. The body of thirty-four-year-old Scott Bowen washed up onshore. His neck was broken. According to the chief medical examiner, Dr. Aaron Pines, Bowen could have broken his neck when falling into the river.” The voice droned on but Francesca was focused on the photograph flashed on the screen. She recognized him immediately. He was the man who had put a knife to her throat. She would have known him anywhere.

“Stefano?” Her hand crept defensively to her throat. She didn’t know what she was asking. The two muggers had disappeared, he’d said so, and the last she’d seen of them, Emilio and Enzo were putting them into a car. They’d done the same with Bowen. Now he was dead, his neck broken. She couldn’t help herself; she shifted her body weight, intending to slide off of Stefano.

His arms tightened. “Don’t. Don’t be afraid of me, Francesca. Not ever.”

“Did you kill him? Did Emilio or Enzo?”

“No.” He was silent a moment, stroking soothing caresses down her spine. “Let me tell you a little about Bowen and his friends before you go shedding any tears for him. They’ve robbed countless people and each robbery has become more violent than the last. They’ve put several people in the hospital, people who cooperated with them. It was only a matter of time before they killed someone. No one has been able to stop them, not the police, not even us, and we talked to them. They just kept getting worse.”

“So you knew about them before they tried to rob me.” She lifted her head to look into his eyes. There was no guilt. No remorse. No expression of any kind. Just cool honesty.

“Yes. But, Francesca, sooner or later, we would have had to deal with them. Someone needed to stop them. They put their hands on you. They put a knife to your throat. That made it sooner.”

Her heart skipped a beat and then began to pound wildly. She turned his declaration over in her mind. He had done something to Bowen. To Bowen’s friends.

“Bottom line, dolce cuore, that’s who I am. When the cops can’t do something to protect citizens, it’s my turn. You have to decide if you can live with who I am. The real me.” His arm was an iron band around her waist, but his hand was gentle as he continued to stroke caresses along her spine.

She heard the note in his voice. Uncertain. He wouldn’t change for her. He couldn’t. And he was asking her to accept him. Every part of him. She closed her eyes and pressed deeper into his chest. On some level she’d known all along, but still the admission caught her off guard. Could she live with that? With a man who took the law into his own hands? He was always loving with his family, with her, with his neighbors. Over-the-top protective. A little scary. Arrogant. He wanted a home, a wife and children, and she knew absolutely she’d be the center of his universe. She didn’t doubt that for a minute.

“You asked me to help a seventeen-year-old girl last night. You knew what that would mean. You knew what you were asking me to do.”

She started to protest, but then remained silent. She did. She knew. She’d been a victim of a man, the same man who had murdered her sister. She had no doubt that Barry Anthon would have murdered her if Cella hadn’t dropped her cell phone in the mail before she’d returned home. She wanted justice for Cella and the cops would never give that to her. Only a man like Stefano Ferraro.

She took a deep breath and turned her head to press a kiss into his throat, closing her eyes. She’d already committed to him. In her heart, in her soul. Almost from the first moment she’d met him, she’d been mesmerized by him. Once she got to see him, once he’d let her into his world, she’d fallen hard and fast. She’d just known.