But when he was inside me, moving with a slow deliberation that felt almost like worship, and his eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that stole my breath—I knew I was wrong. That the attraction I’d felt the first time we met was still burning hot, if not hotter. I knew that he wanted me as much as I wanted him. I knew that the marriage was just a gateway for the heat between us to be explored—by both of us.
“Say my name,” he whispered, one hand sliding up to cup my jaw. “Let me hear you.”
“Alexei.” My voice came out breathless, pleading. “Alexei, please—”
His eyes softened—just for a heartbeat, just enough for me to catch it before the hunger took over again. And that softness terrified me more than all the violence I witnessed today. At least violence has rules and patterns, cause and effect. But this? This feeling spreading through my chest like warmththrough cold water? This need to be closer to him, to crawl inside his skin and find out what makes him tick?
This was uncharted territory.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the dark, and I traced the skin of his chest.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice rough with exhaustion.
“I’m thinking that I should be more afraid of you than I am,” I answered, my chuckle a failed attempt at making things lighter.
His arms tightened around me. “And are you? Afraid?”
“Yes.” I pressed my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady and strong beneath my hand. “But not in the way you probably think.”
“What way, then?”
I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of him—expensive cologne, clean sweat and something uniquely Alexei. “I’m afraid of how much I’m starting to want this. Want you. I’m afraid that I’m losing myself in you, and I’m not sure I care enough to stop it.”
For a long moment, he didn’t respond. Then his hand slid up to tilt my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes in the dim light.
“Then we’re both afraid of the same thing,” he said quietly. “Because I’m not sure I could let you go now even if I wanted to.”
It should sound possessive. Controlling. Like a threat wrapped in velvet. Instead, it sounded like a confession.
I kissed him, not knowing what else to do with the tangle of emotions knotting in my chest. Because words felt inadequate for whatever this was becoming between us. And he kissed me back like I was oxygen and he was a man drowning.
I’m not Mila Petrov anymore, the girl who wanted a quiet life far from violence and blood.
I’m Mila Lobanov.
And I was not sure if that was a triumph or a tragedy.
Chapter Ten
Alexei’s POV
A few weeks passed by calmly. But it was the calm before the storm. I knew this. I’d been in this business long enough to recognize the particular quality of silence that preceded violence—the way the air thickened, the way my instincts sharpened without conscious thought, the way small details that should have been meaningless suddenly felt significant.
Moretti was planning something. The intelligence we’d gathered suggested movement, whispers of shipments being redirected, men being repositioned like chess pieces across a board. But the attacks had stopped. The subtle provocations, the “accidents” that were anything but—they’d ceased almost three weeks ago. And that worried me more than the violence had.
Because men like Enzo Moretti didn’t just give up. They regrouped. They planned. They waited for the perfect moment to strike where it would hurt most.
Still, the past weeks had been… unexpectedly pleasant.
Mila had settled into the estate with a quiet determination that surprised me. She didn’t cower or avoid my presence. Instead, she’d claimed spaces for herself—the library became her sanctuary, the garden her morning ritual. She’d even started joining me for breakfast, and our conversations had evolved from careful and stilted to something that felt almost natural. She asked me about shipping routes and customs regulations with the analytical mind of the forensic accountant she'd been, and I found myself explaining things I rarely discussed with anyone outside my inner circle.
She was learning my world, not running from it.
And at night…
At night, she came to me willingly, eagerly even, with a passion that still caught me off guard. To think that theattraction we shared on the balcony at the party didn’t turn into repulsion after she was forced to marry me, that she saw me as someone worthy of access to every part of her. Fuck, it clouded my mind with a kind of desire and tenderness I’d never felt before. It made me want to please her in the best of ways, even if I had to learn. The careful distance I’d planned to maintain had burned away entirely, replaced by something fierce and consuming that I still didn’t have a name for. I just knew that when I touched her, something inside me that had been cold for years felt almost warm.
I’d even caught myself smiling at her across the breakfast table this morning—an unguarded expression that made Dimitri raise an eyebrow when he’d arrived with the reports.
