“Yours,” I agree, feeling the truth of it settle into my bones.
We fall asleep with me curled into him, his arms keeping me close, my ear against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow into the steady rhythm of sleep.
And I’ve never felt safer, more cherished, or more completely loved in my entire life.
Chapter Twenty-One
SCOTTIE
I’m sweating through my shirt at the gym.
Not because I’m pushing myself harder than usual but because the one thing I can’t do right now is sit still and wait. The waiting is torture, and it’s the only thing I can do because everything I care about is out of my hands.
Katerina is meeting with her grandmother right now.
I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the back of my wrist and slam my stick into the synthetic ice pad again, harder than I mean to. The puck ricochets off.
Luka whistles behind me. “Relax, Easton. You’re going to break the damn flooring.”
I turn. He’s leaning against a weight bench, gripping a protein shake he’s barely touched. He looks… tense.
“Katerina is with your grandmother today,” I say. “You’re not with them?”
He snorts. “Do you not understand the concept of a Russian matriarch? No one goes anywhere near my grandmother unless she wants them there. I don’t show up. My father doesn’t show up. You definitely don’t show up unless you are invited.”
“Still,” I mutter, catching another puck. “If she wanted backup, you should be there.”
He shakes his head. “From here on out? This is Katerina’s battlefield. If she wants the marriage, she has to convince our grandmother herself. Trust me, I would be there if I could, but I doubt I would be much help.”
I hate that he’s right.
I hate that I’m here, sweating like a man waiting for a verdict on a crime he didn’t commit, instead of standing beside Kat while she faces the one person whose opinion can make or break her entire future… our future.
I don’t sugarcoat it. “Maxim showed up after opening night.”
Luka’s jaw locks. “I know. My grandmother told me he’d been sniffing around Seattle.”
“He tried to bribe her,” I say. “Half-million-dollar necklace.”
Luka exhales slowly. “That sounds like my father’s handiwork.”
“Yeah,” I say. “And you’re not worried?”
“Of course I am. Are you?” he counters.
I hate that I am.
Hate it so much my grip tightens on my stick.
“I’ve always known she comes from luxury,” I say. “I mean, Jesus, the day I met her she stepped off a private jet wearing a fur wrap like she was visiting from Mount Olympus.” I shake my head. “I know what I’m up against.”
“Do you?” he asks.
Before I can answer, my phone rings.
Mom.
My stomach drops.
