Page 80 of Maddening Fixation

I had spent years trying to bury those feelings.

Years trying to convince myself that a childish crush was exactly that.

Childish.

I threw myself into relationships with men who looked perfect on paper.

A quiet accountant whose greatest ambition was opening his own investment firm. He remembered anniversaries, brought flowers for no reason, and treated me with unfailing kindness.

I felt nothing.

Then came the ambitious lawyer who filled candlelit dinners with poetry and grand promises about the future. He was intelligent, handsome, and charming enough to make my friends jealous.

Still nothing.

After him, I dated one of the younger associates from an allied Bratva organization. Unlike the others, he understood the dangers surrounding my family. He never asked uncomfortable questions or flinched at armed bodyguards waiting outside restaurants.

He should have been the right choice.

He wasn’t.

Each relationship ended the same way.

Respect.

Affection.

Friendship.

But never love.

Because somewhere along the way, Romeo Medved Flynn had become a part of me.

He had become my first love without ever realizing I’d existed beyond being Yarina’s sister.

And I had accepted that reality years ago.

He had loved Yarina.

Not me.

Never me.

So why...

Why would fate drag us back into each other’s lives now?

Not through chance. Not through forgiveness.

But through a marriage contract drafted by two people who were already dead.

The irony was almost cruel enough to laugh at.

I tightened my grip on the documents until the edges dug into my palms.

This had stopped being about money. About investment portfolios or diamond mines.

It was about reopening a wound I’d fought for years to close.