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At least not tonight. Not while I was still warm with food in my belly, clothed in his dress, and wearing something that belonged to the woman who had raised the man in front of me.

Fuck.

I was supposed to be planning my escape, thinking about how to contact Ghost, about finding a way to get out. I had to figure out how I was not going to be walked down the aisle in less than a week, but instead, I was sitting here wondering what it would feel like to be wanted like this forever.

I didn’t know what scared me more: the fact that I was still thinking about running…

Or the fact that a piece of me didn’t want to anymore.

CHAPTER 25

Sloane

I didn’t sleep right away.

After dinner, after the necklace, I made my way back to the bedroom. The penthouse was dim by then. Quiet. Like even the space all around me was holding its breath.

With everything that had just happened, my head was spinning.

I closed the door behind me and leaned back against it, eyes closed, heart pounding against my ribs like it was looking for a way out. I could still feel his hands on me, hear the way he spoke about his mother, see the way he looked at me when he fastened the necklace: gentle, reverent, real.

Tooreal.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? This man wasn’t supposed to be real. He was supposed to be the villain. The Bratva brute who pinned me down, spanked me until I sobbed, and made me come on his thigh like a needy little thing who forgot how to be herself.I was supposed to be plotting. Planning. Whispering my way out of this place like I always did.

Instead, I let him feed me. I let him talk—and worse, I let myself listen. Now I was standing there, in the soft glow of his bedroom, wearing his mother’s necklace, and wondering how the fuck I let this happen.

I dropped down onto the edge of the bed and stared at the floor, hands on my knees, fingers digging into the space behind them. My skin still smelled like the food he made. My ears still felt the echo of his voice calling me his future wife.

I didn’t hate it. I didn’t fight it. Honestly, I had fucking melted.

Now I didn’t know who I was anymore because I wasn’t the girl who got softened. I was the girl who cut back before anyone had a chance to see she was bleeding. I flirted like it was defensive armor. I lied like it was instinct. I caused problems so I didn’t have to sit still long enough to feel the ones already inside me.

But Nikolai…

He saw all of it.

He saw the fire and the fear, the pride and the mess, and he held me anyway. He wanted me anyway.

That was the most terrifying thing of all.

I drew my knees up, pulled the blanket up over my shoulders like a shield, and lay back on the bed, the ruby cool against my skin. I stared at the ceiling, fists tight around the fabric, heart still pounding.

I told myself this softness was just a detour. That the moment I found my phone or a door or a weakness in his system, I’d runand never look back. But even as I said it, I wondered what he was doing in the other room.

I wondered if he was still thinking about his mother. About Moscow. About me. I hated that it mattered to me.

I turned over and buried my face in the pillow. I’d figure it all out. Tomorrow.

I woke up warm and alone.

The sheets still carried the imprint of his body, but the man himself was gone. The pillow smelled like his cologne—dark and expensive, something leathery, old world, and incredibly masculine. I breathed it in for a second too long, eyes closed, and my body still sore in the best possible way.

But the quiet hit me next.

Not the peace of solitude. Not rest.

It was emptiness.