My chest tightened painfully. I swallowed, afraid if I spoke my voice would break. He was describing his own son withoutknowing it—his mind, his protectiveness, his Volkov steel wrapped in compassion.
I nodded once, silently, a quiet, aching gratitude blooming despite every scar he’d left on me.
Dmitri lifted a hand then, fingers brushing beneath my chin, gently tipping my face upward. The gesture was uncharacteristically tender. Moonlight shimmered across the water, turning his eyes into molten silver.
“You’re less tense than you were when you arrived,” he observed, his thumb tracing the faint line of my jaw. “Is it because you’re realizing I already admire your son?”
“I wouldn’t want my child raised in a hostile environment,” I said evenly, forcing steadiness into my voice. “He deserves peace. Stability. Safety.”
His gaze sharpened—not with threat, but with resolve. “He’ll have all of that here. From me.” A beat. “I don’t know how to be a father, Pen. My world isn’t gentle. I solve problems with leverage and violence. But for him...” He hesitated, as if the admission cost him something. “For him, I’d learn.”
His eyes searched mine. “Will you teach me?”
The vulnerability in that single question cracked something open inside me. I dropped my gaze, heat creeping into my cheeks, emotions tangling dangerously.
“I can teach you,” I whispered.
His mouth softened into something close to a smile. He tucked a wet strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering longer than necessary. Leaning closer, he studied my face with quiet intensity.
“You are so beautiful, Pen.”
Instinct kicked in—old armor snapping back into place. I tilted my head, a wry smirk tugging at my lips. “I suppose it helps that I share such a striking resemblance to your late wife.”
He didn’t deny it. Didn’t deflect.
“I won’t insult you by pretending otherwise,” he said simply. “You do.”
The honesty lingered between us, heavy and intimate.
Then, without warning, he shifted. One arm slid beneath my knees, the other around my back, and suddenly I was lifted from the water. I gasped softly as he carried me to the pool’s edge, setting me down with surprising gentleness before pulling himself out beside me.
Water streamed down his body in silver rivulets, muscles flexing as he straightened. I tried—failed—not to look. His arousal was unmistakable, bold even in the cool night air. Heat rushed to my face, and I folded my arms around myself as a shiver ran through me, my soaked clothes clinging uncomfortably.
Dmitri reached for a thick towel, wrapping it low around his hips before turning back to me. His gaze swept over me, assessing, protective.
“Come,” he said, voice firm but gentle. “You’re freezing. You can’t possibly think I’d let you sleep beside me in wet jeans and a sweater.”
Before I could argue, he lifted me again, cradling me against his chest as if it were the most natural thing in the world. My hands went instinctively to his shoulders, my face close enough to feel the warmth radiating from him, to see droplets clinging to his lashes.
He carried me through the corridors, bare feet silent on marble, the estate hushed around us.
Nestled against him, my pulse finally slowed enough for reason to return.
“Tomorrow,” I said quietly, breaking the silence. “At the party... if I’m speaking to Antonio Ferraro—trying to sway him to your side—what if someone tries to hurt me? The Orlovs already despise me. The Morozovs too. They won’t hesitate.”
He didn’t slow his stride.
Instead, his arms tightened almost imperceptibly around me.
“Let them try,” Dmitri said, voice low and lethal. “You will not take a single step tomorrow without eyes on you. If anyone so much as raises their voice in your direction, they answer to me.”
He glanced down at me, gaze unwavering.
“And if anyone forgets whose wife you are,” he added softly, “I will remind them.”
His grip tightened around me, possessive and unyielding. “Anyone who lays a finger on you dies,” he growled, voice low and absolute. “Slowly. Painfully. I will burn their world to ash before they touch a hair on your head. No harm comes to you, Pen—not while I’m breathing. I will stand between you and every bullet, every blade, every threat this lake can muster. You are under my roof, under my name. That makes you mine to protect. With my life, if it comes to it.”
The ferocity in his voice sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cool night air. Every word cut through the tension that had coiled inside me for days, grounding me in a brutal certainty: he meant it. He would fight to the last breath for me and Vanya. I believed him. Every word, every syllable, was carved in steel.
