Page 92

“When I ask her,” he said, “I want her to say yes because she wants me unconditionally, not because Levon and Dmitry forced our hands.”

Maxim’s expression softened in the small, almost invisible way it did only with his brothers and his wife.

“Good,” he said.

CHAPTER 21

Sergei

I stayed beside the round table after Maxim left, staring at the chair Alessia had occupied. Her coffee cup sat near the documents Giulia had sent from Sicily, a faint lipstick mark along the rim. She had written notes in the margins in quick, slanting lines, crossed out three sentences written by Bellandi counsel, and circled the word spouse so hard the pen nearly tore through the page.

I still felt her in the room even after she walked out of it.

I felt the same way in my house.

Before Alessia, my townhouse had been silent because silence let me hear danger coming.

Now it was quiet only when she was gone.

I still loved Mila. The truth of that had never weakened with time. She remained inside the life I lost, warm and laughing on the kitchen counter in the photograph I once kept facedown.

Loving Alessia didn’t bring Mila back or move her farther away, nor did it replace one woman with another. Alessia had built something entirely new.

Her light was brighter and somehow less forgiving. It found every locked room inside me and demanded to know whether the door served a purpose or merely existed because I had stopped questioning it. She argued with my plans, challenged my commands, and offered me her surrender in a way that would always make my heart pound, but it didn’t end there. She did a million other things that I looked forward to every day. I don’t know exactly when, but somewhere between the first moment she had entered the private room at Nocturne and the moment she placed the leash in my hand, I had fallen in love with her.

I knew it deep in my heart.

The backroom door opened, and Alessia stepped inside, carrying the papers she had gathered from the table, and stopped when she saw me.

“I thought you left.”

“I didn’t.”

“Clearly.”

She placed the documents on the table but didn’t sit. Neither did I. For several seconds, we looked at one another across the room where our families had calculated the value of making us husband and wife.

“I heard you talking to Maxim,” she said.

“What did you hear?”

“I heard that if you asked me to marry you, it would be because I wanted you unconditionally.”

I crossed the room. Alessia remained where she was.

“Marry me,” I said softly.

“Tell me why,” she replied softly, her eyes sparkling with emotion.

“I want you in my life,” I said. “I want you in my home and at the Morozov table,” I continued. “I want you there because they’re your family now. I want you involved in every decision involving your life. I want your work at Nocturne. I want your designs. I want to hear about your grandparents criticizing how I make sauce. I want to hear you argue with Kit about security, with Amy about fabric, with Sloane about fathers, and with Riley about whether you have eaten enough. I want you in my bed after the war is over and, in my kitchen, when there is no threat briefing waiting after breakfast.”

Her arms slowly lowered.

“I want you to be my wife because you make my life worth living,” I said. “That’s why.”

The words left me more exposed than walking unarmed into a gunfight.

Alessia crossed the final distance between us. She placed one hand against my chest, directly above the place where my heart was beating too hard for a room without active danger. Her eyes closed for one brief second. When they opened again, she looked suspiciously bright around the edges.