Page 108 of Arranged Marriage to the Brutal Bratva King
“It’s too early for interrogation.”
“It’s never too early for honesty.” His thumb traces my jaw. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”
I could deflect. Change the subject. Kiss him until he forgets the question.
Instead, I say, “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“This. Us. How much I—” I stop, the words catching in my throat.
“How much you what?”
“How much I love you.” The admission costs me, leaves me vulnerable in ways I swore I’d never be again. Each time I say it, I feel the truth of it in whatever soul I have left. “About what happens if it all falls apart.”
Dimitri goes very still. His eyes search mine, looking for deception, for games.
He won’t find any. This is the truth, raw and terrifying.
“You think I’ll hurt you again,” he says quietly.
“I think you’re capable of it. I think if circumstances changed, if I became more liability than asset, you’d make the strategic choice.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.” He kisses me, soft and thorough and devastating. “You’re not an asset, Janice. You’re not strategy or leverage or any of the things I try to convince myself you are when I’m attempting to maintain control.” Another kiss, deeper this time. “You’re the woman I’m falling in love with.”
“Dimitri—”
“I have been, probably since I walked into that boardroom and you looked at me like I was something you’d scrape off your shoe.”
I laugh, the sound breaking on something that might be a sob. “That’s a terrible origin story.”
“It’s ours.”
He’s right. Our story is terrible—forced marriage, violence, betrayal on both sides. Nothing about this is romantic or healthy or remotely resembling functional.
I love him anyway.
“I love you too,” I whisper. “God help me, I do.”
***
The day unfolds with surprising normalcy.
Dimitri has meetings. I have coffee with Diana, who takes one look at my face and demands details I’m not ready to share. We talk around everything that matters, the way we’ve learned to do since my marriage made certain topics dangerous.
She knows I’m happy. Can see it written across my features, hear it in the way I talk about Dimitri without the edge of resentment that used to sharpen every mention of his name.
“You’re glowing,” she observes over her second latte.
“I’m wearing makeup.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She leans forward, voice dropping. “You’re in love with him.”
“Diana, please.”
