The door’s already cracked open, the faintest sliver of light spilling across the hallway floor. She must’ve forgotten to close it all the way. Or maybe she did it on purpose, hoping I’d join her.
The room is dark except for the moonlight painting pale shadows across the bed. And there she is.
Fiona.
I can see her hair, the way it spills across the pillow. Her body snuggled beneath the blanket. And I envy that thing because I want her wrapped around me like that.
Everything in me says to turn around, go back downstairs, and pour a drink. Pass out on the leather couch in my office if I have to. Anything to keep these unwanted feelings from growing.
Instead, my hand presses against the door, easing it open without a sound, and I step inside.
I tell myself one last time to walk away and be smart. To protect what little control I have left, because this feels like stepping into a war I’ve already lost. The odds are stacked. The cost is too high.
But I would trade every weapon in my arsenal just to feel her body next to mine.
Slowly, I move toward her, each step a surrender I swore I would never make. And then I’m standing over her, watching the only woman who has ever gotten under my skin, who challenges me in ways no one else ever has. Her stubbornness, her fire, the mouth that never holds back. I crave every last piece of her.
I reach out before I even know what I’m doing. My knuckles barely graze the curve of her cheek. Warm. Smooth. Too goddamn soft for a world like mine.
And then…she whispers my name. So quiet I almost don’t hear it.
“Aleksei…”
My hand freezes.
Say it again, detka.
And she does, like she heard me. For a second, I almost believe she’s awake. That she knows I’m here, standing over her like some pathetic fool who can’t sleep without looking at the woman who’s wrecked him.
But she’s not. She’s out cold, saying my name in a nightmare—or worse, a dream.
I don’t belong there. I’m not the man you dream about. I’m the one you survive.
I step back, every muscle pulled tight. My father’s voice slams into me, echoing through the hollow spaces he carved out long ago.
Caring is weakness.
Women are distractions at best, poison at worst.
Your only job is to protect this family.
Affection is nothing more than a liability.
You don’t want what you can’t control.
Every lesson he taught me replays on a loop as I keep staring at her, knowing he was right. I watch her for a few more seconds, like maybe standing here long enough will make the urge pass.
But it doesn’t. It just grows and presses harder. Right now, the only thing I want, the only pull I can’t seem to resist, is to get into this bed, wrap my arms around her, and pretend for one fucking night that nothing else matters.
Instead, I force myself to turn around and close the door behind me.
But even as I walk away, that throbbing in my chest is there, reminding me that in all the noise and blood, the only quiet I crave lives in that room.
And I hate how much I need it. How much I needher.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
FIONA
