“And what about me?” I ask, my eyes locking with his. “Who protects me from you?”
He doesn’t answer at first. The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating, and I can feel the tension in the air. His eyes narrow slightly, and for a moment, I wonder if he’s going to say something, if he’s going to explain himself. But instead,he leans back slightly in the chair, his posture relaxed, like he already knows what comes next.
I feel a flicker of something—resentment, maybe, or something darker—and it pushes me forward, even though I know it’s not a good idea.
His gaze doesn’t leave me, but he doesn’t answer. Not directly.
He’s not letting me go, no matter what I do or say.
His silence, his indifference, is suffocating in its own way. I know he wants to control everything about me, my life, this marriage, and a part of me wants to fight back, wants to push him away.
He rises from his chair, walking to the bed like he has only one purpose in mind. I want to scream and tell him it’s never going to happen. I don’t want him touching me. Never.
But when he sits on the bed next to me, his arms wrapping around my waist and yanking me close, I don’t argue. I go willingly. His breath fans my face, his mouth inching closer to mine, until I’m sure he’ll definitely kiss me. But just when I feel his lips brush mine, he lets me go, stumbling out of bed like I scald him.
His expression is hard, unreadable. He doesn’t speak. But the tension between us is thick enough to make the air feel suffocating.
I try to steady my breath, but it’s like I can’t find control over anything anymore.
It’s strange—how much I crave this, this intimacy, this connection with him.
I hate it. I hate that he’s still in my head, that his presence makes my body respond in ways I can’t explain. I hate that part of me doesn’t want him to stop.
But he does. He backs off. He leaves the distance between us, his posture still rigid, like he’s trying to regain control over the situation, over himself.
He looks at me for a moment longer, and then, without saying a word, he stands and walks to the door. Before he leaves, he turns to me one last time.
“Get some rest,” he says, his voice rough but controlled. “Tomorrow, we’ll begin making this marriage real.”
And with that, he leaves. The door shuts behind him with a final click.
Chapter Twenty - Lukin
It’s been a week since the wedding, and I realize something about myself that I never expected: I’m more patient than I give myself credit for.
I’ve always thought of myself as vicious, impatient, someone who takes what he wants when he wants it. In business, in life—I don’t wait. I get what I need, and I get it quickly. But with Zoe, it’s different.
With her, I’ve been giving her all the time she needs to adjust to her new situation. Watching her move through the halls of this house, cautious and distant, stirs something in me—something primal, something that unsettles me. She’s trying to play the game, trying to act like she can ignore what’s between us. But I can see it in her eyes, in the way she keeps her distance, in the way her shoulders tense whenever I enter the room. She’s fighting this. Fighting me.
She’s both my wife and my prisoner, and that duality, that contradiction, is driving me mad. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anyone, and at the same time, I want to break her. I want to make her submit to me, to show her that there’s nowhere for her to hide, no way for her to escape.
But above all, more than anything else, I want to see her smile again.
I want to see that softness return to her eyes, that warmth that was there before she started pulling away from me. The way she looked at me when she let herself fall into me—when she allowed herself to feel. It was intoxicating.
But now?
Now she’s guarded, careful, like I’m some kind of threat she can’t escape. And the worst part? I’m the one who put that look in her eyes. I’m the one who pushed her to this point.
I can’t help the jealousy that claws at me when she’s on the phone talking to someone who isn’t me, or when she moves through this house like it’s not our home, like she doesn’t belong to me yet.
But I’m giving her time. Time to adjust. Time to realize she doesn’t have a choice.
I watch her when I can, from a distance, trying not to let her see how badly I want to break through her defenses. Fuck. I need her so bad.
“Is this a good decision?”
The question pulls me out of my thoughts, sharp and unexpected. I glance up, meeting Adrian’s eyes from across the table. He’s sitting there, watching me, his expression a mixture of curiosity and concern.
