I chuckled, “I love seeing you smile. And hearing you laugh.”
Her eyes locked on mine, but she didn’t say anything.
We continued our meals in silence until I said, “There’s a war creeping around us.”
“Clearly.”
“His network continues to crumble, but there are people involved who would stop at nothing to cover their tracks.”
She nodded in understanding. “Well, we have each other. We’ll wade through together and come out stronger.”
“You’re under my protection until all this is over,” I promised. “And under my control.”
“I’m tired of being controlled,” she remarked, meeting my gaze. “I'll help you, but on my terms.”
“You’re strong. Braver than one would have thought. That was one of the first things I noticed about you.”
She raised a brow. Then she asked with a small smile, “Do you want to know what I first noticed about you?”
“What?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Your control. It’s beyond the authority that comes with your title, it’s…you. You move, speak, and operate as if there’s no reason for you to lose your cool. I admired that even when I hated you.”
She used hate in the past tense. There was no way I wouldn’t notice that.
“I do lose my cool at times.”
“You’re human, Konstantin. That’s normal,” she remarked before asking. “On a physical level, though, you know what I first noticed and liked about you?”
“What?”
“Your eyes. They’re so blue and beautiful. Especially when they’re not glaring or cold.”
I chuckled at the last part.
“I love your hair. Always have,” I confessed. “Especially when it’s down. Which it rarely is.”
She giggled, and I chuckled.
“How did you know I like carrots?” she asked.
“Liza brought them for you,” I answered. “So I asked her.”
“Wow. You see, this further proves my point that you have a way of—”
“Found something. You should see this,” Mila proclaimed, bursting out of the office and across the sitting room. She held up a flash drive. “It’s huge. And it implicates someone in the Lobanov household.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Alina’s POV
Mila rushed in with a flash drive, and we both stood up. I watched Konstantin as he practically yanked the flash drive out of her hands and went to his laptop on the sitting room table. I followed him and sat beside him while Mila took the next couch.
Our eyes were fixed on the screen as we looked at the different series of offshore transfers and coded emails.
“These are all from someone inside the manor to Morozov’s old network,” Mila explained.
One of the email addresses jumped out at me; I recognized it.
