“Your children speak to you like you’re a general commanding an army.”
“They are soldiers,” he replies, strolling toward me, his presence eating up the distance like fire consumes air. “They just happen to share my blood.”
“And they love you,” I add before I can stop myself. “That’s… surprising.”
His mouth curves, not quite a smile but something just as dangerous.
“You think men like me can’t be loved?”
“I think men like you don’t expect to be,” I shoot back.
He studies me for a beat, the weight of his gaze pinning me in place.
“I don’t expect anything,moya zhena. Idemandit.”
A shiver rolls down my spine. Not fear. Not quite desire. It’s something murkier, something that coils in my stomach and spreads heat through my chest.
Before I can reply, there’s a sharp crash from the indoor kitchen. A plate, maybe two, hitting the floor.
The maid—Anya, poor thing—appears frozen in the doorway, her eyes wide and horrified.
Not a single muscle betrays Konstantin’s thoughts. He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t bark orders like I’d expect from a man carved from ice and control.
Instead, he calls Oleg over with a flick of his fingers.
“Train her properly,” he says, calm as ever. “I do not punish inexperience. Only negligence.”
The girl stumbles back, relief written all over her face.
I watch her retreat, then look at him. “That’s… unexpectedly merciful.”
“Mercy is not weakness,” he answers simply. “But standards must remain.”
God, Elena is going to die when I tell her this. She’ll think I’m living in some mafia fever dream. Maybe I am. But it’s strangely not the nightmare I thought it’d be.
Not when he looks at me like that.
Not when the sky deepens to ink-blue and the lanterns around the garden flicker, casting everything in a soft, golden haze.
“Walk with me,” he says, offering his hand.
I hesitate. Only for a second.
Then I slip my fingers into his palm, letting him lead me away from the kitchen, away from the children’s quiet laughter as they chase fireflies under the cypress trees.
The path winds past the pool, where the water shimmers like black glass, and further into the shadowed parts of the garden, where the lantern light fades, and the air feels thick with something heavier than mist.
He stops beneath an arch of climbing roses, their scent heady and wild.
“Isabella,” he murmurs, my name rough in his mouth.
I swear the whole night shifts around us.
“Please, just… Bella,” I blurt, too fast. “That’s what everyone close to me calls me, you know, except my kindergartenteacher and maybe the IRS, but they don’t count. Actually, they definitely don’t count.”
I know I should shut the hell up now, so I bite my lip to silence myself.
His gaze drops to my mouth, and with a slow, deliberate motion, he brushes his thumb across my lower lip. The touch is feather-light, but it short-circuits my brain entirely. My pulse trips over itself.
