I sigh, letting myself sink into him and soak up his warmth, his amazing scent. His arms feel so damn good around me.
“What do you need me to do, baby?”
“I think it’ll just take time. I trusted you so completely. You weren’t the only one falling, Julian. I finally had ahome. A family. And in the blink of an eye, it was just yanked out from under me.”
He cups my face and brushes his nose over mine.
“Youhavea home and a family, and I’ll give you anything you want to show you how much I?—”
He closes his eyes and clears his throat, and I don’t even breathe, waiting for him to finish that sentence.
“I love you,” he finally says.
I simply stare at him, unable to speak.
“I wouldn’t have reacted the way I did if I wasn’t in love with you. If I didn’t feel like I’d given you my heart, and you’d set it on fire in front of me. It wasn’t simply that I felt betrayed, I wasdestroyed, and I didn’t know how to handle it because I’ve never felt the way I feel about you. You’re my life, Natasha.”
I want to say the words back. I want to so, so badly. Because Idolove him, and now I understand what happened.
I don’t agree with it. I definitely don’t like it.
But I understand.
“I need you to know that if anything evenclosewere to happen again, I won’t come back to you. I wouldn’t be able to do it again.”
He’s peppering kisses all over my face. “I’ll kill myself before I ever hurt you again, Angel.”
“I promise you, I willneverbetray you or your organization. I’m loyal to you. You never have to question that. If something is amiss, just ask me, Julian. I’m not a liar.”
“I can’t promise that I’ll tell you whatever I can when it comes to my business. You won’t want to know everything, andI can’t put you at risk legally. But I will be open with you. You’ll have the same access that my brothers have, and that’s a big step for me. Even Jack doesn’t have that, baby.”
“Thank you.” I nuzzle my face into his neck and take the first deep breath in a month.
Thirty-Six
JULIAN
“What,”I bark into the phone when I see Sergei’s name on the screen.
“I want you to talk to Carson about allowing me into his casino,” Sergei says, making me scrub my hand over the back of my neck. “We’re family now. There’s a poker game I want in on.”
“I don’t run Carson’s business,” I reply, my voice hard as fuck. “Is that really why you’re calling me?”
“I gave youmy daughter. The least you can do?—”
I don’t let him finish. I hang up on the stupid son of a bitch. I already knew that he’s been trying to get in on card games at King of Spades. Carson told me a couple of days ago, just to keep me in the loop.
The old man has some audacity to think that I’d help him with literallyanything.
He can go fuck himself.
I can hear my wife playing the piano from my office. The cast is off her left wrist now, but it doesn’t feel good enough to use it yet. I can tell that she’s playing with just one hand.
She’s been so frustrated and brokenhearted that she can’t enjoy the piano over the past month, and it’s just one more thing that I feel so fucking guilty about.
I miss my wife.
I have her here with me, and we talk and cuddle, but I haven’t fucked her since she’s been back. I wanted her to heal, not just physically but also emotionally. I needed her to feel all the emotions before I brought sex back into things.
