"Oh, I assure you, you'd climb on," he says, a smug grin spreading across his face, and I can't help but roll my eyes.
"You won't see me hopping on that thing anytime soon, don't worry."
"Never say never," he says with a wink.
I don't know why I didn't think about transportation. We were supposed to go to his place today so I could see the wedding location. We decided there's no more suitable venue than his home. The Council will be pleased, and it's small enough to limit access to no more than fifty people, so everyone is happy.
"I told you I can get a cab. It’s perfectly fine. Don't bother calling someone," I say, a slight tremor in my voice as the rain starts to soak through my clothes.
"It's not fine. My wife will not be taking some shady cab," he says angrily, and my mind gets stuck on the word "wife."
It rolled off his tongue so naturally, so simply, as if we were a real couple about to get married, and I feel my cheeks flush. Even though Damien has always given me pet names, "wife" sounds important. It sounds like someone you truly care about, someone you would move mountains for.
It takes him twenty seconds to bark out a few orders, during which he leads me toward the hospital entrance, where an awning offers shelter from the rain. My trembling worsens. Maybe it’s my flushed cheeks, or maybe my brain has frozen over from accepting that word so easily. All I know for certain is thefeel of him stepping behind me, his arms wrapping around my waist, enveloping me in a safety that feels both inevitable and intoxicating.
And I shouldn't want to lean back into him as much as I do.
"Just give me a few minutes where you don't fight me on this," he whispers close to my ear, and I swallow the lump forming in my throat.
I don't answer. I just let myself lean back against him, lacing my fingers with his, and accept that I've had a few nightmarish days and need a moment of peace. I could scream and deny so many things out loud, but deep down, I know this is one of the few moments my mind hasn't been racing a hundred miles an hour, searching for answers.
Who is the man who keeps looking for me? Why didn't he speak to Yuri? How am I going to manage being a mob boss's wife?
I feel his lips at the base of my neck, and an involuntary shiver runs through me.
"Damien…" I want it to sound like a warning, but it comes out as just a faint murmur.
"I don't know how I'm going to survive having you this close," he whispers like a confession, and I close my eyes.
You'd have to be blind not to see the attraction between us, but you'd have to be insane to encourage it. We are the perfect recipe for disaster. He'll surely find another "attraction" when this temporary obsession with me evaporates. And it will, just like it did with all my exes when they realized there was nothing special about me, nothing out of the ordinary, like they believed at first.
And I'm far too thirsty for affection, too starved for love, to easily get over the inevitable moment it happens.
Because that's my story, isn't it? To be interesting enough to attract attention but never special enough to be kept. To be that fascinating chapter in someone's life but never the whole book. And my desperation for affection, this constant hunger to be loved, makes me even more vulnerable to the disappointment that will follow.
Among Damien's many businesses, Luna told me he owns an exclusive club where he extracts information for blackmail. She didn't have to give me details for me to imagine what goes on in there, and I almost grind my teeth. I recognize the feeling at the root of these thoughts: jealousy.
Images of Damien with other women flash through my mind like a bad movie: kissing him, pressed against him, him giving them that smile that has become the best part of my day.
I tense up, and I know he notices the shift in me. Above us, rain patters on the metal roof, punctuated by muffled voices from inside the hospital.
"I don't want you to have a mistress while we're married. It's only for six months. You can resist without—"
Before I can finish, he turns me around and cups my face in his hands. There's vulnerability in his eyes and a trace of anger, mixed with something else that glitters. Something I can't quite place.
"Do you really think that with you just a few feet away I could want anyone else? Do you think there's any woman in this world who could draw my eyes away from you?" he asks, his voice betraying the anger and disappointment that I would even suggest such a thing.
Even though all my exes proved I have an expiration date, my life went on after them. But I know that if I were to lay my soul bare for Damien and he betrayed me, I would never recover.
He calls me his little sun, but I don't think he realizes he's the fire that's keeping me alive right now. And I have a feeling it's going to be damn hard to live in the cold after knowing such warmth.
Chapter 17
Damien
"This entire house is yours?" Roxanne’s voice pulls me from my thoughts, and I look up, surprised.
I shift on my feet, an uncharacteristic restlessness taking hold. I’m proud of this house and what I’ve managed to make of it, unassisted, save for a little… guidance.
