She chokes. Actually chokes. “You want to… that’s… I could pay for a house of my own and go back to school...”
“You can pay for whatever you want with that, it’s of no concern to me once the contractual obligations are fulfilled.” I take in the tiny tremor in her hand clutching that damn earbud and a cleaning cloth woven between her fingertips. “You will lack nothing while you are my wife. While you are carrying my blood. Aftwards you will be free to do as you please.”
“I’m a maid,” she whispers. “I’m nobody. Shouldn’t you choose someone…” Her gaze drops to her own body, like she sees every insecurity written on her skin. “Proven? Sophisticated? Someone who knows what she’s doing?”
She tries to laugh, but it sounds like she’s swallowing panic. “I’ve never even had a serious boyfriend. I don’t… I haven’t…” She gestures vaguely downward, mortified.
She’s a virgin.
A heat I don’t expect hits me low and vicious.
The towel tightens against my hips. Her eyes flick to the movement, then away just as quickly, as if she’s afraid she’ll get burned by looking too long. I can’t stop staring at her.
“I don’t trust proven,” I say quietly. “I trust potential.”
She looks stunned. Like no one has ever chosen her before. Like she doesn’t know how to handle being wanted.
I lift her chin with two fingers so she can’t look at the floor for comfort. “And I trust you.”
Her breath shatters on a soft, fragile exhale.
“Why?” she asks.
Because when you stood in my bathroom and stared at me like that, you didn’t see power or danger. You didn’t see the heir to the Dubovich Bratva. You saw me. And you liked it.
Because you are soft where the world has made me armored. Because every instinct I possess, the ruthless ones, the deadly ones, are already curling around you like a claim.
Because I will kill anyone who looks at you wrong, and I have no reasonable explanation for why.
But all I say is: “Because I’ve already decided.”
A flush spreads across her neck. She is terrified and tempted and trying so hard not to show either.
“Tell me what you want, Charlotte.”
“I want,” her voice trembles, “a life that isn’t this. I want a future.” She swallows. “I want to be something more than barely scraping by in a lonely life.”
“Then I can give you everything you need to achieve that,” I tell her. “In return, you will give me a child.”
A child. As if one would ever be enough with her. As if I’d be able to let her walk away afterward.
She looks around like freedom is just steps away, and then she looks at me again, and something in her eyes shifts.
Resolve. Hope. A dangerous kind of trust.
She nods, a tiny movement, like she’s afraid that agreeing too quickly might break the spell.
“Okay,” she whispers. “I’ll do it.”
The agreement is a stone dropping into a lake, sending ripples through the rest of my life. My control fractures. I take another step closer, and she has nowhere left to move. Her breath brushes my skin. My voice is low when I speak next, a quiet vow disguised as logistics:
“You belong to me now, Charlotte. For the next fifteen months, you are mine. ”
Her pulse kicks against her throat, a fluttering bird desperate to be released.
“When was your last period?” I demand, my breath skating over her lips.
“Wh–what?” she asks, but I can see her calculating, figuring out dates in her head. “L-Last week, it finished on Friday.” The blush that stains her cheeks is adorable.
