Page 180 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“I love you too, Sasha,” she says.

My hands close at my sides. Not yet.

“I love you,” she says again, softer now. “I want you. But I also want my apartment back. My studio. My mornings. My life. I want to know that when I come here, it’s because I chose your door, not because mine disappeared.”

“Yes.”

She doesn’t trust the speed of that answer.

“Yes?” she repeats.

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to argue?”

“No.”

For the first time, her mouth almost curves. Then it disappears.

“I’m not asking to end the marriage.”

I don’t let myself move toward her.

“But I want to do this in the right order.”

I accept that. It costs more than I expect.

I let it cost.

“How?” I ask.

She takes in the living room. The hallway. The bedroom where the first boundaries between us were drawn.

“I want to go to my apartment tomorrow.”

“Done.”

“I want security I approve.”

“Done.”

“I want you to ask before you come over.”

That one is harder than the others. Not because it is unreasonable. Because it is intimate in the exact way ownership never is.

“I will.”

That reaches her.

“And I want you to take me to dinner,” she says. “Like a man who wants a woman, not like a husband collecting what the church handed him.”

I’m embarrassingly close to losing the calm I have left.

“Tamara.”

“I want you to court me, Aleksander.” Her voice lowers. “Properly. Patiently. Badly, if necessary. I’m willing to be entertained by your incompetence.”

The sound that leaves me fails to become a laugh.