All Chapters of SUBSTITUTE BRIDE FOR THE MAFIA DON: Chapter 411 - Chapter 420

Andrea's POV"Yes," I said. And the word came out steady and certain, because it didn't feel like a lie. It didn't feel like a lie at all. "Yes. I'm his family. Please — how is he? Is he going to be alright? Please tell me he's going to be alright."She gave me a small, steadying nod — the kind that let a little of the terror drain out of me before she'd even spoken. "He's stable. And I want you to hear that first, because it's the most important thing. He was very lucky, all things considered. When he came in we were concerned about internal bleeding, and that's always the real danger in a head-on impact like his — but the scans came back clear. No internal bleeding. That was the thing we were most afraid of, and he doesn't have it."The relief hit me so hard and so fast that my knees actually gave a little, and I had to brace my hand against the glass to keep myself upright. Air went into my lungs — real air, a full breath — for what felt like the first time since my mother had turn

Andrea's POV"Dante, I'm hurting you—""I don't care." His voice was rough and slurred, thick with sleep and painkillers and something else underneath, but there was absolutely no arguing with it. "I don't care if it hurts. I want to hug you. Let me hug you. Please.""I don't want to hurt you," I said, and my eyes were streaming again."Five more minutes." He murmured it into my hair, and I felt him breathe me in. "Just — five more minutes. Please, Bambi."That name. That name after two months of nothing.So I stayed.I stayed carefully, holding most of my weight off him, my head tucked up under his chin and his good arm heavy and warm across my back. And I listened to his heartbeat under my ear — steady and strong and alive — and I let myself have it. Five minutes. Then ten. Then I lost track completely and stopped caring.Neither of us said anything. There was too much to say and no way to start, and for a little while the just-being-there was enough.It ended when the door

Andrea's POVDante and I stayed in the hospital for the night.He demanded to be moved. Not asked — demanded, in that low, even voice of his that somehow made people jump to do exactly what he wanted even when he was flat on his back with a broken arm and a bandage wound around his head like a crown. He wanted a bigger room, a more comfortable one, and no one connected to Luca was ever going to argue with him about the cost. Within the hour, two orderlies were wheeling his bed down the long quiet hall to a suite at the very end of the ward — one of the ones they kept for the kind of people whose bills got settled without a single question being asked.I trailed along behind, my arms full: his chart, my bag, a paper cup of truly awful vending machine coffee that had gone lukewarm and bitter. And when I stepped through the door into the new room, I stopped dead on the threshold.It was huge.Wide windows ran along one whole wall, looking out over the glittering sprawl of the city stretc

Andrea's POVDante's jaw tightened. "That's not necessary. I can manage.""You have a broken arm and a concussion, and you live alone. Who's going to change your dressings? Cook for you? Wake you up every few hours like the doctor said someone has to for the concussion?""I'll manage," Dante said again."You'll come to the mansion," Luca said, "and Mrs. Cruz will take care of you, and I'm sending a doctor to check on you there every day until they clear you. This isn't a discussion, brother. I nearly lost you. Let the people who care about you take care of you for once in your damn life."There was a silence.I kept my eyes on the shirt buttons, doing them up one by one, pretending very hard that I wasn't listening to every word."...Fine," Dante said at last, quiet and grudging."Good. Andrea's there?""I'm here," I said."Make sure he actually goes and doesn't sneak off to his apartment the second my back is turned.""I'll sit on him if I have to," I said, and I heard Luca laugh bef

Andrea's POVIt had been a week since Dante was discharged from the hospital, and he was doing so much better.The bruise at his temple had faded to a faint yellow-green. The stitches on his cheekbone had come out. His arm was still in its cast, and would be for a while yet, but he moved more easily now, less carefully, less like a man made of broken glass. Mrs. Cruz had finally, grudgingly, decided he was well enough to leave his room, and she watched him do it like a hawk, ready to march him straight back to bed at the first sign of him overdoing it.We spent very little time together, even though we were living under the same enormous roof.That was the strange thing about it. We were closer than we'd been in two months — same house, same meals, passing each other in the hallways — and yet somehow further apart than ever, both of us so careful, so polite, so terrified of stepping wrong. We'd nod at each other in passing. Say good morning. Ask how the arm was doing. And then retreat