Chapter 9 - Stripped of Emeralds and SilkSilence returned to the grand banquet hall, pure, clean, and vast.
The forty syndicate commanders remained standing along the thirty-foot table, their weapons lowered, their eyes fixed on the man who had just dismantled an eighty-million-dollar conspiracy in twelve hours without losing a single soldier.
Damon stood at the head of the dais.
He turned his gaze away from the door and looked directly down at me where I sat beside his daughter.
He walked over to my chair, extending his large, warm hand.
"Clara," he said softly, his deep baritone carrying clearly to every soul in the room. "Stand with me."
I placed my hand into his palm. He lifted me gently to my feet, his arm wrapping naturally around my waist to support my balance as we stood together before the forty most powerful men in Illinois.
Damon reached into his breast pocket and produced the antique velvet jewel box.
He opened the lid.
Resting inside on white silk was his mother's original engagement ring: the five-carat emerald-cut diamond set in hand-forged platinum.
Damon lifted the heavy ring.
He turned to face me.
With infinite gentleness, his large, scarred fingers took my left hand, holding the ring poised before my finger.
"Clara Ward," Damon began, his deep baritone carrying an emotional tremor that shook my entire being.
"Yesterday afternoon, you entered my library carrying drafting paper, fighting through agony and fear just to keep an innocent child safe from wolves. You were surrounded by wealth, arrogance, and deceit, yet you never let this world tarnish the pure gold of your spirit."
He looked down into my hazel eyes, all the terrifying power of the syndicate sovereign dissolving into the vulnerable, unyielding devotion of a father and a protector.
"You took an iron blow to the temple to ensure my daughter was not stolen into the dark. You brought light into a house of shadows, and you taught me what family really means."
He slid the diamond ring onto my finger.
It fit with absolute, divine perfection, gleaming brilliantly beneath the chandeliers.
"Clara Ward, will you marry me? Will you be my wife, Mia's mother, and the true Donna of my life, my home, and my fleet?"
Tears of pure, unadulterated happiness spilled over my lashes, hot against my cheeks.
"Yes," I choked out through my laughter, throwing my arms around his neck as he rose to his feet. "Yes, Damon! A thousand times yes!"
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Damon swept me up into his arms, lifting me off the dais, spinning me beneath the crystal chandeliers before bringing his lips down onto mine in a fierce, breathless, deeply tender kiss that sealed our destiny forever.
Mia cheered loudly from her chair, clapping her hands with pure, boundless joy, while Don Carmine Falcone raised his glass with a booming shout of celebration that rattled the windows.
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