"I'm yours," she gasps, bucking up hard against me. "I think I've always been yours."
"You're right." I'm feverish, half mad and burying myself as deep as I can. "From the first moment you lured me into the garden." Violet tightens down as she comes and I can feel it, a fireball roaring through me and I flood her as she squeezes the come from me.
The water beats against us as I slump, pinning her against the tile wall. "I love you," I manage.
"I love you too… husband." Violet whispers back.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
In which, impossibly, everything turns out the way it’s meant to.
Violet…
Two weeks later…
The entire top floor of the Morozov Group's office building has been transformed with twinkling lights and enormous floral arrangements - blood red and white flowers - which seems highly symbolic to me. There's a vodka bar,anda caviar bar. The string quartet is quietly playing Russian folk music, this quartet includes abalalaika,a huge stringed instrument with a triangular shape. The Russian tune they're playing is beautiful, long, mournful strains of music that make my heart hurt.
Roman bought me a purple silk dress to wear tonight, and it does not escape me that it matches the color of my diamond exactly. He loves little details like that, part of what he calls his interest in "all things Violet."
Ava's radiant in a glittering black gown, talking with Dmitri and his Uncle Yuri. Yuri is tall and rakishly good-looking like all the Morozov men, but he has a more calm and kinder edge than Maksim.
Maksim has been nothing but gracious to me since the rescue and the terrible battle at the restaurant, which of course hasmade my guilt almost crippling. I'd tried to apologize to him tonight for being left defenseless after sending most of his men to save me, and he cut me off.
"My dear," he said, "We are Bratva. That was just another Tuesday." My eyes might have been deceiving me, but I swear there was a twinkle in the polar depths of his gaze before he patted my shoulder gently and walked away.
Ella begged Maksim to pass the title ofPakhanon to Dmitri, and she is the only one on the planet who could get him to say yes. Dmitri seemed to stand even taller, shoulders wider as he accepted the mantle during the ceremony tonight.
As for theSovietnik…
"Are you having fun?" Roman's arm wraps around me.
"How could I not?" I ask. "Did you see that caviar bar? Also, that guy you introduced as theObshchakhas been face down in the Almas Caviar bowl. I don't know if he's gorging or unconscious." He laughs, flashing those even, white (but not bleached) teeth. I still take a moment every time I see him and marvel that one man could be this beautiful. He's wearing a custom-made tux that fits smoothly over his wide shoulders. "But where have you been?"
He finishes his vodka. "Talking to Nikandr."
I eye him curiously for a minute, my hand absently smoothing down his jacket. "Do you regret passing the responsibility ofSovietnikto him?"
His gaze is open and clear as he vehemently shakes his head. "Absolutely not. The structure of this Bratva is exactly as it should be." He holds up his hand, the tattoos on his knuckles are vivid. “I don’t have to be theSovietnik.I don’t have to pretendto be anything other than what I am so that Dmitri’s hands stay clean. Mine are not.”
My husband looks peaceful, and I tuck the moment away in my memory because a peaceful Roman is a rare thing.
Yuri's wife Tania walks over, greeting me with a brisk kiss on the right cheek, then the left, and the right again in the traditional Russian way. She's very pretty, and even in her late 50's, she still has that mischievous twinkle in her warm brown eyes that spells trouble.
Which of course, makes me like her even more.
"Welcome to the family," she says warmly. "A secret marriage, how romantic!"
"It's only romantic if both people know they're married," I say dryly. Roman kisses me and laughs, tapping his glass to Tania's.
I look around the room. "Where is Alexsey?" His recovery has not been smooth. There was only so much the hand surgeon could do for him, and his left arm has been locked in a brace since he left the Morozov clinic. He came tonight, cold, stoic, and silent, greeting his parents and acknowledging Dmitri asPakhanbefore retreating to a corner with an expression that made it clear that company would not be welcome.
Roman's grin faded. "He's already left."
"I'm sure he's exhausted," Tania says sadly. "He's got a lot of work ahead of him. But he'll heal, because we’re his family, we will all be there to support him."
It weighs heavily on me that Alexsey lost his gift as an artist because it still feels like my fault. He had to take part in rescuing us and then, the ambush at the restaurant.
"You're blaming yourself again aren't you?" Roman's lips are against my ear.
