Page 91 of The Bratva Enforcer and His Virgin Bride

Or maybe I do.

Maybe I’m simply unwilling to say it out loud.

Either way, I know one thing.

The man sitting across from me is becoming harder to resist. And that clarity follows me long after the candles burn low and the evening finally comes to an end.

Chapter 12 – Lukyan

The last candle burns itself out just as we step away from the table. Neither of us seems in a hurry to acknowledge that the evening is over.

For a few moments, we simply stand there beneath the balcony lights, the estate glittering below us and the remnants of dinner scattered between us like evidence of something neither of us quite understands yet.

Then I hold out my hand. Sofia looks at it. Then at me. A faint crease appears between her brows, but to my surprise, she places her hand in mine without arguing. The simple trust of it catches me off guard. Her fingers are warm. Small inside my palm.

I close my hand around hers and lead her back into the house. She follows quietly. No complaints. No attempts to pull away. The silence between us feels different from what it used to.

It’s not awkward. It’s not hostile. It’s very comfortable. This should concern me more than it does.

As we walk through the dimly lit hallway, my thoughts drift back over the evening. The conversation. The laughter. The way her eyes brightened when she talked about books. The way she nearly fell out of her chair laughing when I told her about breaking my arm as a teenager.

I shake my head slightly. I’d organized this dinner because I was tired of the distance and silence between us, but I got more than I expected. She totally relaxed with me.

Somewhere along the way, things changed. It happened gradually enough that I didn’t notice it at first. Now it’s impossible to ignore.

When Sofia first entered my life, every decision involving her had a purpose. A strategy. A goal. Even kindness had an objective behind it.

Now I’m not so sure. Tonight wasn’t strategy. At least not entirely. I wanted to spend time with her. The simplicity of that truth is unsettling. Because it creates a problem I don’t know how to solve.

I understand business. Power. Leverage. Those things make sense. People don’t. Especially not when emotions become involved. And Sofia has somehow become an emotion.

We reach the upstairs corridor. Her room waits at the far end. The closer we get, the more aware I become of her beside me. Of the warmth of her hand. Of the faint floral scent that always seems to follow her. Of the fact that, for the first time in weeks, she isn’t looking at me like I’m the villain in her story.

This hit hard. Because I know things she doesn’t. I know why she came into my life. I know what Karl was trying to accomplish. I know the truth sitting silently between us. And still, every day, it becomes harder to tell her. Harder to risk losing whatever this is before I’ve fully understood it myself.

Sofia slows slightly when we reach her door. I stop with her. Neither of us immediately lets go. The hallway is quiet. The house asleep around us. For a moment, we simply stand there.

Her gaze lifts to mine. And something about the way she’s looking at me makes my chest tighten unexpectedly. The hostility is gone. The walls aren’t as high as they used to be. Tonight proved that.

I can see it in her eyes. She relaxes around me now. She smiles easily. She no longer seems constantly prepared for battle. And the worst part is that I like it. More than I should.

“Sofia.” My voice sounds rougher than usual.

She blinks. As though she’d been lost in thought. “Yeah?”

For a second, I don’t know what I intended to say. The words disappear the moment she looks at me. An unfamiliar problem. One I’m beginning to encounter far too often around her. Eventually, I settle for the truth.

“I had a good time tonight.”

The admission feels strangely vulnerable.

Her expression softens. “So did I.”

Simple words. Yet they affect me more than they should. A small smile appears on her face. And there it is again. That feeling. The one that has been steadily growing for weeks. It doesn’t involve logic. Just the increasingly dangerous realization that I care what happens to her.

More than that. I care what she thinks of me. The thought settles heavily in my chest. Because men like me don’t get many opportunities to reinvent ourselves. Our mistakes follow us. Our choices define us. And I’ve made more bad choices than most.

Yet standing here with Sofia, I find myself wanting something absurd. A chance. A chance to become someone she doesn’t regret trusting. The idea is so foreign that I almost laugh at myself.