I don't answer. I don't need to. She can see it in my face.
"Oh, God." Her hand flies to her mouth. She's shaking now, her whole body trembling. "They'll come for me. For the baby. To hurt you, they'll…"
"They won't get the chance."
"You can't promise that!" The words burst out of her, raw terror breaking through. "You can't protect me from everyone.” Her breath hitches. "I'm never going to be safe again. This baby is never going to be safe."
A heavy silence fills the room. Her eyes, wide and haunted, lock onto mine. For a moment, she looks small, fragile. Breakable. Something primal and protective surges through me.
I close the remaining distance between us, my hands aching to reach for her but holding back. "You're carrying my child. A miracle I never thought possible. And that changes everything."
"Changes what, exactly?" She crosses her arms over her chest, a defensive gesture that makes my chest constrict.
"Everything." I let the word settle between us, heavy with implications. "The doctors told me I was sterile. An assassination attempt damaged more than just my body. It took away any possibility of children, of legacy, of anything beyond the empire I built. I accepted that truth. Built my life around it. Never let myself want what I couldn't have."
Her expression softens fractionally, and I press my advantage.
"Then you jumped into a storm-tossed ocean to save my life, and somehow, impossibly, you're carrying my child." My voice drops to something rough and intimate. "So yes, Aria. Everything has changed."
She's quiet for a long moment, her dark eyes searching mine. When she finally speaks, her voice is steady despite the emotion I can see churning beneath the surface.
"What do you want from me, Nikolai?"
"I want you here. In my home. Under my protection." I take a calculated risk and reach for her hand, relief flooding through me when she doesn't pull away. "I want to know that when I'm dealing with threats, you and our child are safe behind walls that can't be breached. I want to wake up every morning knowing you're both alive and whole."
"For how long?" Her fingers tighten around mine. "How long do you expect me to stay locked in your prison?"
My jaw tightens but I don't answer. I know she knows the truth, that she is here for life, or at least until the baby is born, but she isn't ready to accept that yet.
"Your business can be managed remotely," I say instead. "Your life is here now. And your independence…" I pause, choosing my words carefully. "Your independence ends where your safety begins."
She yanks her hand from mine, fire blazing in her eyes once more. "You can't just decide that. You can't lock me up and call it protection."
"I can." My voice drops to something cold and absolute, the Pakhan fully emerged now. "And I will. You and the child are under my protection now, Aria. That's not a request. It's a fact."
The words hang in the air between us, and I watch her face cycle through shock, fury, and finally something that looks like resignation. She understands what I'm telling her. This isn't a negotiation. This is how things are going to be, whether she likes it or not.
"I hate you right now," she whispers, but her hand moves to her stomach again, protective and possessive.
"I know." I step closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body. "But you'll forgive me eventually. Because deep down, you know I'm right. You know the danger you're in. You know what carrying my child means in my world."
Her breath hitches as I reach out and cup her jaw, my thumb brushing across her lower lip. The touch ignites electricity between us, that same magnetic pull that's existed since the moment our eyes met across the yacht's deck.
"I won't let anything happen to you," I murmur, my accent thickening with emotion. "Or to our child. Whatever it takes. Whatever I have to do. You're mine now, Aria. And I protect what's mine."
21
ARIA
"You're mine now, Aria. And I protect what's mine."
The words settle over me like a sentence, and I feel the walls of this beautiful study closing in. My throat tightens with emotions I can't name, a tangled mess of fury and fear and something dangerously close to relief that I refuse to acknowledge. His thumb still traces my lower lip, the touch sending unwanted heat cascading through my body despite everything screaming at me to pull away.
"I'm not yours." The words come out weaker than I intend, barely above a whisper. "You can't just claim me like I'm territory to be conquered."
His eyes hold mine with an intensity that makes my pulse hammer in my throat. "I already have."
Before I can respond, before I can tell him exactly where he can shove his possessive declarations, he steps back and moves to the door. His hand rests on the frame as he calls out in Russian, his voice carrying that clipped authority I remember from the yacht. Two men appear immediately, the same ones whocollected me from my apartment, and Nikolai speaks to them in rapid Russian that I can't understand.
