Fuck. Did I just say that—to my future sister-in-law?

  Her eyes waver, but she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t look like she wants to. Her breath tickles the end of my nose. Hazelnuts and vanilla. She’s close enough for me to trace every contour in her lips.

  As I watch, they part, ever so slightly. The tiny sliver of blackness between her lips is the edge of a cliff that I absolutely, positively, under no circumstances can allow myself to fall over.

  So when I do exactly that—when my lips graze hers—I’m not even sure who to blame. If she pulled me over the edge or if I made the plunge myself. I’m not sure it even matters.

  Not when I realize that I would burn the whole world to ash for the sake of a single kiss.

  35

  ILARION

  She’s the one who pulls away.

  Her eyes are still swimming with tears, but now, I suspect there’s a different reason for them. “What are you doing?” she croaks, her voice strangled with guilt.

  I get to my feet, parsing her expression with the precision of a coroner’s blade. Instinct is telling me that the kiss was both our faults. She’s vulnerable. And I…

  I want to say that it was about nothing but her lips, but I can feel the truth becoming more and more obvious in my head.

  There was something about this woman that drew me from the second I first saw her. It was her. Strength and vulnerability in one. She fought in one moment and fell to pieces in the next. Fierce and fiercely loyal at the same time.

  The fact that she’s beautiful strikes me as a mere afterthought. Icing on the cake, as they say.

  Desperation boils in her eyes. Her own guilt screams, Blame him; it’s his fault, all of this. And if I were a better man, I would let her.

  But if I were a better man, this whole situation would be a thousand times less fucked-up.

  “Nothing you didn’t ask for,” I snarl in answer to her question.

  She cringes, but doesn’t stay hunkered in her recoil. There it is again—that balance. “You are engaged to my sister.”

  “A fact that you’re just as aware of.”

  She sucks in her breath. “This is not about me!” She gets up and circles me with eyes blazing, my little tigrionok on the prowl. “I knew—I knew—from the beginning that your feelings for her weren’t real.”

  “Kissing me was just a way for you to prove your suspicions then?”

  “I… that’s not—you’re a cheater!” she cries. She’s desperately clawing for an excuse and we both know it. “I don’t know why you’re marrying Cee, but I know it’s not for the right reasons.”

  Her instincts are sharper than she could ever comprehend. But the future of my Bratva depends on gaslighting her into submission. Like I said—a better man wouldn’t have to do the things I’m doing.

  But I’ve been sinning for so long that I don’t know any other way to live.

  “And what are your reasons, Taylor?” I ask. “You claim to love your sister. You claim to want to protect her. So why do I still feel the way you kissed me back?”

  Her eyes widen. “I didn’t—”

  “Maybe it’s because you want what your sister has,” I growl, cutting her off. “Maybe it’s because you’ve always wanted what Celine had. She was right about you.”

  That makes her stop in her tracks. Her whole frame trembles. She doesn’t want to give voice to her question, but I know she won’t be able to stop herself.

  In fact, I’m counting on it.

  “W-what are you talking about?”

  “You think Celine hasn’t told me things?” I muse. “I know more about you than you realize, Taylor Marie Theron. And I know that even though you like to play the innocent, you’re nothing but a conniving bitch trying to steal your sister’s man.” I meet her horrified gaze and drop the final bombshell. “Again.”

  Something dies in her. For a moment, I wonder if I’ve gone too far. If I’ve broken her irreparably. I turn to leave right after I see the first fresh tear fall.

  It’s bad enough seeing her cry.

  It’s worse knowing that I’m the one who created her tears.

  36

  ILARION

  I end up pacing outside her corridor for far too long before I abandon the second floor for the gardens. I’m not in the right clothes for it, but I start jogging around the pathways. I keep going until I’ve burned off all the extra adrenaline poisoning my veins.

  I don’t know what she does to me. I sure as fuck don’t understand it. But whatever it is, in her presence, I become a weak man incapable of sheathing his lesser impulses. I become a man too deaf to listen to his better judgment.

  I’ve spent months thinking up the perfect plan, and I’ll be damned if I burn it all to the ground for a woman. Any woman.

  Even her.

  When my lungs are double-clutching in agony, I end the run and go back to the house. I find Mila at my office door about to knock.

  “I thought you were in there,” she explains. She scrunches up her nose when she takes note of sweat-stained shirt. “Why are you all gross?”

  “I went for a run.”

  “In those clothes?”

  “Why are you here, Mila?” I don’t have the time or patience for any more games. “Has Dima cracked our lead?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” she says. “But security just informed me of an issue at the entrance.”

  I tense immediately. “The Bellasios?”

  “The Bellasios, you can handle. This problem…I’m not so sure.”

  She’s enjoying herself a little too much. I’m in no mood for it. “Cut the shit and tell me what you’re here to tell me.”

  She suppresses an amused smile. “Taylor’s at the front gate, and she has a bag packed.”

  “The fuck…” I clench a fist just so I don’t start ripping my hair out. “Get security to put her back in her room.”

  “You’re not going down there?” Before I can answer, understanding dawns on her at the same time the stone in my gut sinks lower. “Ahh. Something happened between the two of you.”

  “Nothing happened. She’s just stubborn and arrogant.”

  “Hm. Reminds me of someone I know.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Go and check in with Dima. I’ll handle this.”

  “Good luck.”

  I head straight for the security gate at the bottom of the driveway. As I approach, I see Taylor facing five of my men with her back to me and a packed bag at her feet. They’ve formed a loose semi-circle around her, fidgeting uncomfortably in place while they itch for guns they know far better than to use.

  Taylor doesn’t notice me coming. “…This is abduction! I hope you realize that!” she shrieks. “I can have you all arrested!”

  “You can try.”

  She spins around, her face flaring up with renewed fury. “You. Stay away from me.”

  I stop a few yards short to give her the space she wants. “Get back in the house, Taylor.”

  “In your fucking dreams.”

  I glance over her head at my men. “At ease, gentleman. You’re excused. I’ll take it from here.”

  The men leave without bothering to hide their relief, and I turn to Taylor impatiently. “I understand why you want to leave. And believe me, I’m counting down the days until that will happen. But it’s not today.”

  “I have an apartment I need to get back to.”

  “It’ll keep.”

  She grinds her teeth together. “I don’t know why I stayed here as long as I have. Chalk it up to shock. I was reeling from what happened to Celine and Dad. And then…Mom.” She takes a deep breath. “I should have left that same day. You have no right to keep me here.”

  “Don’t make this unpleasant,” I warn, taking a step forward. She moves back, keeping the same distance between us. A fucked-up tango between two people who don’t belong anywhere near each other. But who are stuck together nonetheless.

  “Are you trying to tell me that I’m a prisoner here?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that it’s not safe for you out there.”

  “What do you care?”

  “I care because you’re carrying my baby, and that is my concern. For as long as you’re pregnant, that makes you my concern as well.”

  She looks around in frustration, her shoulders dropping. She’s tired, that much is obvious, but it’s not in her nature to admit defeat.

  Another thing that we have in common.

  “No one knows I’m pregnant.”

  “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “No it’s not,” she argues. “But it will be if I stay with you.”

  She has a point there, but it’s not one that I’m willing to entertain. The idea of watching her stroll out from under my protection feels unnatural somehow. Like losing a limb. I tell myself it’s about the fact that she’ll be walking out with my baby, but I’m not so sure that’s the whole reason.

  I just can’t afford to examine any other possibilities.

  “The Bellasios managed to not only find out about my engagement to your sister in record time; they also attacked my private home in order to abduct her. I’m not taking chances.”

  She shakes her head in disgust and resignation. “So what’s the plan then?”

  “The plan is to get your sister back. I’m working on—”

  “No,” she interrupts, “I mean the long-term plan. What happens after you get my sister back? Because I know one thing for sure: you cannot marry Celine and have a baby with me.”

  I’m starting to realize the same thing. But the stubborn asshole in me refuses to accept that it has to be one or the other.

  “What are you really asking me, tigrionok?” I murmur. “Are you asking me to leave your sister for you?”

  Anger flashes across her eyes. “Fuck you, you egotistical bastard. Are you already forgetting the promise you made to my mother? Because I certainly haven’t.”

  “I remember.”

  “Good,” she hisses. “So I’d much rather keep this secret than make my sister unhappy.”

  Every muscle in my body tightens. I know for sure that whatever she says next, I’m not going to like. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I was convinced that the only move going forward was to get my sister to leave you,” she admits. “But I was convinced that she didn’t know who you really are. I was so sure that what she felt for you was infatuation, not love.”

  I wait patiently. Dread coils low in my gut.

  “But talking to my aunt, I realized that Celine doesn’t do infatuation. She doesn’t fall often, but when she does, she falls hard. So if she agreed to marry you, it’s because she really does love you.” She meets my gaze. I watch in real time as the fires in her eyes cool into dense sadness. “Don’t get me wrong—I still think she’s making a mistake. But it’s her life, and her mistake to make. So I’m not going to ask her to leave you. I’m not going to get in the way of your marriage. And that means this baby has to be mine, and mine alone.”

  I stride towards her, covering the last of the distance between us. This time, she doesn’t back away from me. She holds her ground and stares up at me with those astonishing hazel eyes.

  “You’re asking me to abandon my child. To pretend that I’m not the father. To bury my fucking head in the sand.”

  My voice quivers with pent-up fury at the mere suggestion.

  The worst part? She’s right.

  She’s right and I fucking know it. Even as every bone in my body is screaming to pour lighter fluid on the plan I’ve painstakingly put together over the last few months, to cast it all aside and grab the infuriating woman in front of me to finish what we started on the bed earlier tonight…

  I know deep in my marrow that I can’t.

  “That’s what I’m asking you,” she agrees. “Are you still going to marry Celine?”

  I close my eyes and say the only thing I can say: “Yes.”

  She nods. “Then I can only be your sister-in-law, and this baby can only be your niece or nephew. Not your child. Certainly not your heir.”

  Everything she’s saying makes sense. Too much sense. Which is exactly why I don’t address it. I snatch her bag off the ground, and then I grab her arm.

  “Ow!”

  I ignore that just like I’m ignoring all the reasons I shouldn’t be doing this as I drag her up the driveway and back into the house.

  “Stop!” she cries out. “Let go of me!” She slips out of my grasp and whirls around to face me, hair mussed into a furious mane around her head. “I can walk up by myself. I know the way.”

  “You’re here for as long as I say you are,” I snarl as I get right up in her face. “You got that?”

  She meets my eyes for only a fleeting second. I see so many things written on her face.

  Fear.

  Disgust.

  And worst of all…

  Hope.

  Then she nods. “Fine.” She takes her bag and disappears into the house.

  I can feel myself rapidly losing control of this situation, but at least she agreed to stay. For the time being, she’s under my roof.

  As long as she’s close, I can handle the rest.

  37

  TAYLOR

  It’s been twenty-four hours since I left my room.

  I’ve spent some of that time sleeping, some of it reading, but most of it staring at the antique weapons lining the opposite the bed. There’s a giant two-handed saber that I’m particularly taken with. It’s got a hundred years’ worth of nicks and grime on it, but the edge on the blade seems pretty sharp still. I don’t know much about weapons, but I could do some damage with it. How hard could it be? Aim the pointy end at the person you don’t like and swing it, right?

  Celine would be horrified with me. She doesn’t even like movies with too much gore in them. I stepped on a butterfly by accident once when we were little and she cried for a week.

  Which makes it all the more darkly comedic that she’s marrying a man like Ilarion. A man who hangs bloodstained battle axes on his walls and inspires otherwise innocent people like me to daydream about committing violence against that smug smirk of his.

  When the door opens, I’m not at all surprised to see Mila in place of her brother. I’m guessing he’s in no rush to talk to me since our “negotiations” at the gates.

  Fine by me.

  I swing my legs down from where I had them propped on the back of the couch and glance at her with disinterest. “Tell me, Mila: do you ever resent having to follow your brother’s orders like a trained lackey?”

  She shrugs. “I am a lackey. Just not a very well-trained one.” Then she falls onto the opposite end of the sofa, kicks off her shoes, and pulls her feet up. “You haven’t been eating.”

  I roll my eyes. “Being kidnapped can really mess with your appetite.”

  “You’re being protected, not imprisoned.”

  “That’s a nice spin. You and your brother should really consider going into politics.”

  “Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t mean it’s not true. You’re carrying the heir to the Zakharov empire. That’s no small thing.”

  The way she says it has goosebumps traveling along my arms. “Stop,” I say, holding up a hand. “My baby is no heir to anything, okay? This is my baby.. And since Ilarion and Celine insist on marrying each other, whatever children they have together will be the heirs. Leave me and mine all the way out of it.”

  I expect my tone to piss Mila off—hell, part of me was hoping for it—but instead, she leans back and regards me with curiosity. “What made you decide to keep the baby?”

  I’m wary she’s pressing for information. “My decision had nothing to do with Ilarion.”

  Mila lofts a brow. “I wasn’t implying it did.”

  They keep saying I’m not a prisoner or a caged animal, but I sure feel like one or the other. I’m acting like it, too. My first conversation after a day in self-imposed solitary confinement and I’m ready to lash out at anyone who wanders too close.

  “I’m twenty,” I finally say. “Having a baby never crossed my mind. It wasn’t even something I thought about wanting in the future. But then I saw those lines on the test, and I saw this little nugget in my belly when I went to the doctor’s, and…” I look up to find that Mila is watching me closely. “And…I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. But I just felt this strange, instinctive need to protect this little alien. I knew I couldn’t bear to get rid of it, and if I couldn’t do that…keeping it was the only option.”

  She takes all that in with a solemn nod. “Do you think you’ll be a good mother?” It’s not a snotty question or a rude one. Just a curious one.

  “I have no idea,” I admit. “But I do have a good example to follow. My mother was…” I choke up, but manage to hold down the sob. “She was the best.”

  “Yeah, I got that at the funeral. Watching you cry over her grave…I felt the love you felt for her.”

  When I glance at Mila, I start to realize that maybe her curiosity has to do with the fact that for perhaps the first time in her life, she’s seeing a different kind of family dynamic. From what little they’ve shared, it seems like the Zakharov siblings experienced a vastly different childhood with their own parents.

  “Do you remember your mother at all?” I’m careful with how I ask because there’s no telling how she might react. Whenever the subject has come up before, however tangentially, she freezes and walls up.

  Today, though, she just shrugs. “Some things,” she says. “Mostly that she had no interest in being a mother at all. She had Ilarion and I because she was required to provide heirs. We were just a part of the bargain she struck with our father.”

  Her voice hitches strangely on “father,” but I don’t want to interrupt her.

  “I was older than I’d like to admit before I realized that my nanny wasn’t actually my mother. That she had no relation to me at all, and that she was actually paid to look after me. That was a bucket of ice water, let me tell you.” She glances at me through her long lashes. “I think it’s admirable that you want to protect your baby, and he isn’t even born yet. I think that alone makes you a good mother.”