He bends down, his lips hovering over mine, his breath warm against my mouth.
“Would you like to go see what I’ve done inside?” he asks.
I blink. “Whatyou’vedone? How?”
He chuckles, like he can’t believe I’m still questioning him. “Not me personally,” he corrects. “What I’ve arranged.”
My heart swells. “I’d love to.”
He knots his fingers through mine and leads me inside.
The first room steals my breath again. A cream and gold kitchen, marble floors, and a grand dining table that looks like it belongs in a palace.
I stop dead in front of a painting in the middle of the wall.
Blue waves.
A familiar style.
My throat closes.
“One of yours,” I whisper, stepping closer.
It’s the one I watched him draw… after my dad found out about us.
Our future.
Drago nods beside me. “You said you wanted our house decorated with my art,” he murmurs. “So I had some shipped here.”
My chest aches in the best way. “It’s incredible, Drago.”
He presses a kiss to the side of my head, and then he takes me through the rooms—each one more stunning than the last.
Until we reach one wall, and I nearly choke.
Portraits.
So many of them.
Me, smiling. Me, furious. Me, soft. Me, vulnerable. Me, laughing like I forgot how to be afraid.
A whole wall filled with Lily Morozova through Drago Korolyov’s eyes.
“That’s still so much art of me, Drago,” I giggle, embarrassed and flustered.
His arm slides around my waist, pulling me in.
“I’m obsessed, Lily,” he says bluntly.
Heat floods my cheeks.
I tuck myself closer into his side. “I draw the line at a grand portrait on the staircase,” I warn him, teasing. “Like one of thoseregal ones where I’m holding a wine glass and looking down on my kingdom.”
He chuckles. “Okay. Deal.”
Then he lowers his voice, and the air changes. “There is one new piece I’d like to show you, though.”
I look up at him through my lashes, my pulse instantly quickening.
