She shrugged. “I guess I’m still struggling to understand your meaning. Because when I think of a real marriage, of course, I think of it as a partnership. But I also think of respect, love, an?—”
“Let me stop you there.” I held up my hand. “As I’ve stated before, this has nothing to do with love.”
“But what is a marriage based on love, if not partnership and respect?” she asked, her hands splayed across the countertop, her expression painfully earnest.
I took a deep breath and considered my words. She wasn’t wrong, but she also wasn’t right. I wanted the constant of a real marriage without the vulnerability of loving someone so completely, and I searched for a way to explain that without saying it.
“This is a real marriage in the ways that matter. We fuck, we respect, we trust. We will be each other’s dates to save ourselves from lonely work events.” She rolled her eyes, but I continued, struggling to find the right words. “We…take care of each other as…friends would. However, when you love your partner, there is a certain desire—acravingto have that person. As if you couldn’t survive without them by your side. Like you would do anything in your power just to see them smile. I want you as my date. I want to make you come every way possible. I want youto be my wife.” I held her stare, ensuring she heard every word. Especially this last bit. “But I would be fine if I couldn’t have you as any of those things. I will never crave anyone like that again.”
“Oh…” Her shoulders dropped, and she blinked, absorbing my explanation.
“So, do you understand?”
“Yeah. I guess I do,” she said, her lips pulling down.
“Don’t look so sad, princess. Most of the time, that kind of love is fleeting or a lie altogether,” I admitted, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone. I’d thought I’d had that love with Daria, and as I said, it’d all been a lie. “This kind of marriage has all the benefits without any of the expectations. Expectations are what fuck marriages up.”
She nodded but didn’t get a chance to respond before the timer on the oven went off.
“Dinner’s ready,” I announced. “Why don’t you go get us a bottle of wine while I serve?”
She scooted off the stool and went to the wine fridge, pausing when she opened the freshly stocked shelf. “Oh, wow,” she murmured.
“What?” I peered over my shoulder as I got plates, noticing which rack she pulled out. “Yeah, I just got those.”
“Th-these are my favorites.”
When I bought them, I thought nothing of it, but now, watching her look through them, tension crawled down my neck and around my shoulders. “Yes. I remembered what you ordered at our dinner meetings, and I asked the sommelier for similar recommendations. I figured you might like having your own selection now that you’ve moved in.”
I refused to turn around in the ensuing silence, instead focusing on twisting the pasta into a neat circle, spooning a small portion of sauce, and topping it with chicken nuggets.
“Thank you.” She finally spoke, freeing me from the torment of wondering if she’d read more into the gesture than I’d intended—and from the even stranger torment of wondering why I’d done it at all.
“It was nothing.”
Without another word, she rounded the island back to her seat, passing me the bottle with one of the softest smiles she’d ever given me—igniting a slow, delicious warmth that spread through me from the inside out.
Furrowing my brow, I looked away and reminded myself…
It was nothing.
CHAPTER 4
LUCIAN
Clutching the velvet box tighter than necessary, I rounded the corner to her bedroom door open and froze, finding her perched on the settee in front of her bed, draped in black silk and lace, bent over one completely exposed leg from the slit in her dress, and fastening the buckle on her strappy black shoes. Her floor-length dress with long sleeves covered her completely, yet she seemed on the edge of indecently exposed.
Shaking my head, I tapped my knuckles on the door before she caught me staring like a fool.
“Almost ready,” she said.
She stood, and I nearly choked on my tongue. If I’d thought her dress revealing before, it was nothing compared to seeing her fully upright. Lace clung to her arms and swept over her upper body, meeting a band of silk at her waist, sheer enough to tease the illusion that with a closer look, I might glimpse skin beneath.
But that wasn’t what sent my heart pounding.
It was the deep vee, plunging to the center of her stomach, that made my cock twitch in my pants. She was demure and illicit all at once, a contradiction wrapped in lace and silk, and Iclenched my fists painfully tight to keep from tearing the dress away to see the rest of her.
“You look—” I choked over the words and swallowed. “You look amazing.”
