My vision narrows to her alone. I don’t know if the officiant has pronounced us husband and wife yet—I don’t care. I’m already cupping her face in both hands and kissing her, hard, as the rest of the world falls away.
It’s not gentle. It’s not even careful. It’s like every piece of me that has been restrained, every plan, every ounce of control explodes in one moment. Her lips part beneath mine, soft and urgent, and I pull her closer, crushing her body against me until there’s nothing between us but the heat of her and the world-breaking relief that she is mine.
The guests cheer, but I barely hear it. The only thing I’m aware of is her—her hands gripping my jacket, her breath mingling with mine, and the taste of her lips. Everything else, everyone else, ceases to exist.
When we finally break apart, she’s smiling so wide she can barely breathe, and my hands are still cradling her like I don’t ever intend to let go.
9
LILY
This feels unreal.Like I’ve stepped into someone else’s dream—a fairytale, a movie scene that was never supposed to belong to me. Everything about this moment has that soft, glittering edge, the kind you see on the movie screen when the girl gets the guy.
And somehow, impossibly, that’s exactly what I did. I got him. I won the guy no one ever gets—the one wrapped in shadows and sharp edges, the one whose very presence makes my pulse kick into a sprint. He’s the kind of man who steals the air from a room without even trying, the kind who makes every hair on the back of my neck stand on end, not from fear, but from the unbearable thrill of being seen. And now he’s looking at me. Choosing me.
My heart can’t decide if it wants to fly or burst.
Once he finally lets me go at the altar—after a kiss that is far too R-rated for a room full of witnesses and earns an actual whoop from my college friends—Aleksandr growls low against my mouth at the sound, a promise of retribution that only I can hear. Then he grabs my hand and we practically run down the aisle to Beyonce’s voice pouring out in that flawless, aching cover of “At Last,” a song so perfect it makes my chest hurt..
Well,heruns; I half trip, half fly, dragged behind him in a blur of silk and adrenaline because all he cares about now is getting us out of that room. The sound swells as we burst into the hallway, and for one breathless, impossible second, I feel like I am floating inside the lyrics. At last. My love has come along. We turn the corner, and Aleksandr immediately swings us into a room.
The seating room is like something out of a painting: warm green walls washed in soft light, chestnut-brown furniture arranged in intimate little clusters, and accents of gold that catch like candlelight in every corner. It’s beautiful and rich and alive, but none of it touches me the way he does. My entire body is still buzzing from the kiss, from the growl, from the way his hand refuses to let go of mine like he’s terrified someone might still try to take me away.
We skid to a stop in the middle of the room, half laughing, half breathless, and for a moment all I can hear is the song, the pounding of my heart, and his voice in my head, low and rough, whispering like it’s a vow:mine.
“Okay, I understand the dress, the colors, and flying my college friends out, but the song,” I gasp, walking over to the desk on the right side of the room.
“What about the song?” Aleksandr asks as he tugs at the knot of his tie—a perfect periwinkle silk, patterned with black and gold embroidery that catches the light when he moves.
“You pickedAt Last—both the Etta James and the Beyoncé versions—andA Thousand Years.How did you even know those were my favorites?” I giggle, propping myself up higher on the table until my feet leave the floor. The relief is immediate; as gorgeous as these Louboutins are—custom, with his initials AIPfor Aleksandr Ivan Petrov and my new ones LGP for Lily Grace Petrov—they hurt like the second coming of hell.
Aleksandr smirks and crosses the room, heading straight for the sideboard. He picks up a bottle of prosecco—of course it’s prosecco, because he knows I hate champagne—and pulls down two crystal glasses to go with it.
“A Thousand Yearsis the song forTwilight,and that is your favorite guilty pleasure movie.” He smiles a blinding, white smile that makes my stomach flip and unravels the foil around the cork of the bottle.
“Guilty pleasures are supposed to be secret,” I say with a smirk, leaning back on the heels of my hands, the table edge pressing into the backs of my thighs.
Aleksandr pops the cork with a clean, practiced motion and only shrugs. “There are no secrets between us,” he says simply. “AndAt Lastwas for me.”
“My favorite song?At Lastwas for you?” I lift a brow as he pours the prosecco into two crystal glasses, the pale fizz catching the light. “I don’t believe that.”
He picks up both glasses, crosses the room, and offers one to me. “Do you know whatmoyameans?” he asks, a slight tilt to his head.
“No,” I admit, fingers brushing his as I take the glass. “But you’ve called me that for years.”
“Moya meansmine,Lily,” he says. His voice is quiet but steady. “I’ve known you were mine since high school. And finally, at last, you are.”
I stare at him, my mouth falling open just a little because—what? Who says that? Who thinks like that? My brain short-circuits trying to process how utterly insane this is. For a man to just… know? To decide that I was his years ago, to keep that to himself while he’s been watching me, learning me,yearningfor me all this time? It’s obsessive. It’s completely unhinged. And the worst part? I feel the heat from his words all the way down to my knees.
He raises his glass, eyes never leaving me. “A toast,” he says.
I blink hard, trying to gather words, my throat tight as I lift my glass with shaky fingers. “T-to what?” I stammer, sounding like I’ve forgotten English.
His lips curve—not into a smirk, but something softer, deeper. “To you,” he says. “To you finally being exactly where you belong.”
And the way he says it—like there was never any other ending but this—makes my pulse stutter so violently I almost forget to breathe.
I bring the glass to my lips because I need something to do with my shaking hands, and the prosecco is crisp and cold, bubbles bursting soft and sweet on my tongue. It steadies me—barely. My pulse is still doing that wild, uncoordinated flutter.
