Page 15 of The Russian's Stalked Bride
Mila’s eyes harden, seemingly catching on to the fact that I’m inserting myself in this situation even if I shouldn’t. “You don’t get to decide either.”
Taking a step closer, I’m a bit surprised when she doesn’t retreat, but I catch the slight ripple of tension in her. “You’re staying here.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Mila shakes her head like she’s trying to push me out. “You can’t keep me here…you said you’d let me go whenever I say so.”
I huff through my nose. “That was before I knew they were planning to marry you off.”
She blinks back at me in disbelief, as if I struck her. “So what, then? You think I just belong to you now?”
Even hearing that sends a thrill down my spine, but I keep it in. Instead, I lean a bit closer, looking down at her. “You’re under my protection. I never said anything about owning you, as tempting as that is.”
Her expression shifts into an incredulous one, and she scoffs. “And if I don’t want your protection?”
“It’s either that, or the alternative,” I state calmly, unruffled. “If you’d prefer to go back to your brothers, to be forced into an engagement you don’t want, and a lifetime of being watched, traded, and used—”
“Stop it,” she cuts in, shoulders dropping as her words quiet into something more dejected. “I get it. And no, I don’t want to go back.”
The fight drains out of her in real time, replaced by a grim understanding she can’t bury as much as she surely wants to. I know she hates that I’m right, but it’s inevitable.
“There it is,” I murmur, not exactly garnering satisfaction in her defeat, but the fact that she knows this is safer than being with her brothers.
Mila looks away and forces out a breath, letting more honesty wrap around her words. “I just wanted an escape.”
“And you have it. For now, we lay low while I figure out what else Maksim is planning.”
She crosses her arms and throws me a vaguely irritated look. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It won’t be, but that’s how most things go.”
Studying me for a long moment, wariness creeps in to ruin the place of relative acceptance I’ve brought her to. “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“The ‘lay low’ part mostly applies to you,” I murmur, eyeing her. “You stay here, rest, and don’t attempt to contact your family.”
“And if I do?”
“Then you’ll regret it, and not just for disobeying me.”
Something about that catches her attention, but she schools her features as quickly as possible. “I don’t appreciate your tone.”
“And I don’t appreciate how you’re pushing, yet here we are.”
That’s a bit of a lie, but I’m not letting her know that.
Really, I like how she’s questioning me and trying to calculate what I’m all about. More than that, I’m enjoying that she’s here with me and not them. That she chose her escape instead of obedience, even if she doesn’t entirely know what she’s doing.
I like how hard and fast Maksim’s plans just collided with my own, and how I can use this to my advantage. Though I have the feeling she isn’t going to make this easy for me, as much as I’d prefer it.
“I won’t stay here forever, and I hope you’re prepared for that.”
The slight challenge wrapped around those words makes my lips pull just enough to be noticeable. “Then we’ll talk about it, just not right now.”
It’s not a promise, but it’s also not an outright refusal either. I’m a man of my word; I just haven’t explicitly given it yet.
Mila watches me for a long moment, still gauging me. “You might’ve helped me back there, but that doesn’t mean I trust you.”
