Page 92 of The Russian's Bought Bride

The confession leaves me feeling strangely exposed, yet I let it sit here anyway.

Nikolai goes still beside me for a moment, then he lifts my hand slowly and presses a kiss against my knuckles. The gesture is so unexpectedly tender it nearly wrecks me on the spot. He’s the only one capable of doing that to me.

“You deserve to be,” he says simply, as if it’s obvious.

My chest aches, and I turn toward him a bit more to study the sharp line of his profile in the afternoon light.

Weeks ago, this man terrified me. Sometimes, parts of him still do, since he belongs to a world built on violence, loyalty, and bloodshed in ways I’ll probably never completely understand, but he also sat beside me through the worst of it.

He held me when grief made me feel so hollow I could barely take care of myself; he encouraged me to heal even when I wanted to disappear into myself entirely, anddespite everything, he became the safest thing in my life. “You know,” I say softly, letting a note of subtle mischief enter my words. “My therapist thinks I’ve attached complicated emotional associations to you.”

A faint smirk settles on his lips. “That sounds concerning.”

“She says trauma bonding is common.”

His expression shifts slightly at that as uncertainty moves through his eyes. “Are you saying you want distance?”

“Definitely not.”

The response comes quickly and is loaded with far too much honesty, but I can’t bring myself to regret it.

Nikolai glances toward me again, lifting a curious brow at me. “No?”

I shake my head slowly. “No.”

Our beginning was twisted and painful in ways I never could’ve dreamed up before, but what exists between us now feels real anyway.

Everything about us is messy and complicated, yet so much more fulfilling than anything I’ve experienced before. I can’t quit him now.

The city stretches around us while he drives us beneath the endless Las Vegas sun, his hand still loosely holding mine across the center console while his thumb softly strokes against my skin.

For the first time since my father died, the future doesn’t feel quite so impossible to face anymore, since I won’t be doing it alone after all.

Chapter 29 - Nikolai

Dinner with my family is never quiet, and tonight is no exception.

The private room Roman reserved at one of the older luxury restaurants off the Strip is loud with overlapping conversations, glasses clinking together, and enough opinions exchanged around the table to qualify as a small war.

Sergey is halfway through antagonizing Ivan over something involving inventory routes while Wyatt still looks deeply resigned to the fact that nobody in this family is capable of speaking at a normal volume.

Through all of it, Danielle somehow manages to settle into the chaos with surprising ease, more like she has grown fond of it, and I can’t stop watching her.

She’s seated beside me near the middle of the long table, smiling faintly while Mila shows her pictures of Alexei on her phone for what must be the tenth time tonight. It doesn’t matter how many times they gush over him; she’s still just as happy to participate.

“Don’t be fooled by his cute face,” Ivan says dryly from across the table, feigning irritation. “He screams at night on purpose.”

“He just inherited your spite,” Sergey informs him.

Roman gives Sergey a pointed look. “I think he gets his volume from his uncle. You specifically.”

He throws his hands up in surrender, and laughter breaks out around the table again.

Beside me, Dani laughs too, and the sound calms everything inside me.

There was a time when her more gentle reactions were hard to comedy, and when grief hollowed her out so completely that even smiling looked painful. Now, she’s relaxed into the evening with loose shoulders and a warm expression beneath the soft restaurant lighting. She still gets overwhelmed around all of us at times, but she no longer looks like she’s bracing for impact every second she’s here.

Instead, she belongs, and that satisfies me more than I ever would’ve guessed.