A day later, Andrea's leg was healing fast. He was still limping but when I redressed the wound in the early afternoon, it had reduced in size, new skin had grown and he was in far less pain than the day before.

It had been a relatively untorturous twenty-four hours for me too. After saving his life, Andrea had the decency to leave me alone for the evening and I sat out on the balcony watching over Bogota for hours as the pink chalk sunset was replaced by the bright lights of the city.

I'd always wanted to come to South America. This wasn't exactly how I envisioned it happening but just for a short moment, as I took a deep breath of the fume polluted air and watched people on the street having fun, everything was sort of okay.

Apart from using me as a nurse to his wound, it wasn't until the following evening that he bothered me for anything else.

"I'm attending a party in the city tonight and you're coming," he said to me as he sat beside me out on the balcony.

I nodded, "Is it going to be like the last party?"

"No one is gonna die," he replied.

"You've said that before," I muttered.

"I don't keep my promises," he said with a grin. "You may have realised that by now. But if someone ends up with a bullet in their head tonight, I can assure you I didn't plan it. We're meeting my respectable business friends."

By 'respectable friends' he actually means 'dirty murdering fellow drug lords'.

"Go shower and, there's a dress laid out on the bed," he said.

I nodded, already looking forward to a cold shower to rid myself of the mugginess of Bogota.

As expected, the dress would never be "Leo approved" but it at least had a certain level of class to it.

I dried my hair and slipped into it before looking at my reflection in the mirror of the bedroom.

My bruises were gone and after sleeping properly for the first time in a while the night before, I was looking considerably less like a corpse.

Already dressed in a shirt and black trousers, Andrea drew up behind me.

"You look stunning," he said as he looked over my shoulder into the mirror.

He ran his hands down the dark red velvet of the dress and then traced the deep V-neck with the tips of his fingers.

"But there is something missing," he said after a pause.

He then opened a drawer and lifted out a necklace. It was made of diamonds for sure and when he put it around my neck, I felt its weight on my chest.

"It's pretty," I said touching it with my fingertips.

"I'm going to propose to you tonight at the party," he said after kissing my cheek. "And you're going to say yes."

I looked up to his eyes in the mirror and blinked whilst trying to make sense of what he had just said so casually.

"What?" I asked turning to face him.

"You are going to become my wife," he stated looking down at me.

"What?" I repeated.

"What is so hard to fucking understand? You are going to marry me," he said slowly.copy right hot novel pub