What Viktor hadn’t anticipated was walking into his office to find Anka pacing behind his desk like a caged predator, her face flushed with fury and her eyes blazing with the kind of righteous indignation that made her absolutely magnificent.
“Are you insane?” she demanded before he’d even closed the door. “Nick Barresi called to cancel three major shipping contracts because you decided to rearrange his face instead of handling this like a professional.”
Viktor moved to his private bar and poured himself two fingers of bourbon, taking his time with the ritual while Anka’s anger filled the space between them like static electricity. Thealcohol burned down his throat, but not nearly as much as the realization that she was defending the man who’d propositioned her.
“Nick Barresi got exactly what he deserved,” Viktor said finally, turning to face her with deliberate calm. “And if you think I should have handled his disrespect with conversation and compromise, you don’t understand how this world works.”
“His disrespect?” Anka’s voice climbed higher, disbelief sharpening every word. “Viktor, he’s connected to every major shipping route between Italy and the East Coast. His family has ties that go back generations. You could have talked to him, explained the situation, found a way to—”
“Found a way to what?” Viktor set his glass down hard enough to make the crystal ring. “Let him continue imagining what you’d look like under his hands? Allow him to keep disrespecting my wife because maintaining business relationships is more important than protecting what’s mine?”
The possessive pronoun hung in the air between them, loaded with implications Viktor hadn’t intended to voice. Anka’s eyes widened, something flickering across her features that looked dangerously like hope before anger reasserted itself.
“I’m not property to be protected,” she shot back, stepping closer with the kind of fearless defiance that had originally drawn him to her. “I’m a person who can handle inappropriate comments without needing you to commit assault on my behalf.”
“You think this was about inappropriate comments?” Viktor’s control, already strained by the day’s events and the bourbon burning through his system, began to fray at the edges. “He wasn’t making small talk, Anka. He was testing boundaries,seeing how far he could push before I pushed back. Men like Nick don’t respond to polite requests and professional courtesy.”
“So instead of trying diplomacy first, you went straight to violence and lost us millions in potential revenue?” Anka planted her hands on her hips, her professional attire doing nothing to diminish the fire in her stance. “That’s not protection, Viktor. That’s ego.”
The accusation stung, partly because it carried enough truth to hurt. But Viktor had spent four years nursing rage that demanded outlets, and having Anka question his methods while defending the man who’d disrespected her felt like betrayal layered on top of betrayal.
“My ego,” Viktor repeated, his voice dropping to the dangerous quiet that made his enemies reconsider their life choices. “You think I destroyed a lucrative business relationship because my pride was wounded?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” Anka threw her hands up in frustration. “You won’t explain your reasoning, you won’t consider alternative approaches, you just act and expect everyone else to deal with the consequences.”
“The consequences?” Viktor moved around the desk toward her, fury making his movements sharp and predatory. “You want to talk about consequences? The consequence of letting Nick Barresi think he could treat you like a commodity would have been him escalating until he tried to take what he thought he was entitled to. The consequence of diplomacy with men who see weakness as an invitation is having to scrape your body off the bottom of the Hudson River.”
Anka didn’t retreat as he approached, didn’t back down even when he stopped close enough that she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. The defiance in her expression wasabsolute, uncompromising, and it made something primitive and possessive roar to life in Viktor’s chest.
“You don’t know that,” she said, her voice steady despite the tension crackling between them. “You didn’t even try to—”
“I did it for you.” The words tore out of him with more force than he’d intended, carrying years of suppressed emotion and frustrated protection. “Everything I did today was for you, because no one else in your life has ever put you first.”
Confusion replaced anger in Anka’s expression, her brow furrowing as if he’d started speaking a foreign language. “What are you talking about?”
The question hit Viktor like a revelation, sudden and devastating in its clarity. She genuinely didn’t understand what he meant. The concept of someone prioritizing her safety and dignity above business considerations, above family politics, above the endless calculations that governed their world—it was so foreign to her experience that she couldn’t recognize it when it happened.
“When was the last time someone chose you over convenience?” Viktor asked, his voice rough with emotions he couldn’t name. “When did anyone in your family sacrifice something they wanted to protect something you needed?”
Anka’s mouth opened, then closed without sound. The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications that made Viktor’s chest tighten with something that felt dangerously close to heartbreak.
“That’s what I thought.” He reached up to cup her face, his thumbs brushing over cheekbones that were sharp with tension. “You’ve spent so long being everyone’s second choice that you don’t recognize what it looks like when someone puts you first.”
“Viktor...” she breathed, his name carrying confusion and longing in equal measure.
“I beat Nick Barresi bloody because he looked at you like you were something he could purchase,” Viktor continued, his control unraveling with every word. “I destroyed those contracts because keeping his money wasn’t worth allowing him to disrespect what matters most to me. I chose you over profit, over politics, over every rational business decision, because you come first.”
The transformation in Anka’s expression was immediate and devastating. Her eyes went wide with something that looked like wonder, her lips parting on a soft exhalation that made Viktor’s remaining restraint snap completely.
“You come first,” he repeated, his voice breaking on the words. “You’ve always come first, even when I was trying to hate you, even when I thought revenge would satisfy what you’d taken from me. It was never about the contracts or the alliance or proving a point. It was about you, it’s always been about you.”
The kiss that followed was inevitable, explosive, years of suppressed emotion and frustrated desire finally finding an outlet. Anka melted against him with a desperation that matched his own, her hands fisting in his shirt as if she could anchor herself to the certainty of his words.
Viktor lifted her onto the desk without breaking the kiss, scattering papers and knocking over his bourbon in his haste to get closer. Anka’s legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him against her with the kind of abandon that suggested she’d been holding back as much as he had.
“Viktor,” she gasped against his mouth, his name a prayer and a plea that undid something fundamental in his chest.
He worked the buttons of her blouse with fingers that shook slightly, revealing skin that was flushed and warm and absolutely perfect under his hands. The sounds she made as he mapped the curves he’d been dreaming about for weeks were better than music, better than victory, better than anything he’d ever experienced.
