Page 35

ZOYA

I stared out the window, my arms crossed tightly, my body curled in the direction of the door. I didn’t really see the outside world as we flew past it. Everything was a wet, dreary blur.

There was too much going on in my head, too many racing thoughts, too many doubts, and so much pain.

The car felt so small with Roman in the driver's seat. I was surrounded by his aroma, by his warmth, and there was no escaping it.

Part of me didn’t want to escape it. It wanted me to bask in it, absorb it, memorize it so I could be comforted by memories of him for the rest of my life.

He would move on eventually. There was no way a man so handsome, strong, and passionate would stay single for long. He would find someone to give him the life he deserved.

I wouldn’t move on from Roman. I would only have my memories to keep me warm at night. That was a sacrifice I was willing to make for his happiness.

My heart pounded in my chest, the words to beg him to stop, to turn around and take me back on the tip of my tongue.

But I couldn’t say them.

I was doing the right thing. It hurt more than I thought possible. My chest ached, my head pounded, and my throat was dry. Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them spill down my face.

Roman had barely said a word since we left the estate. Not that I wanted him to talk, not when every second in his presence made it harder to breathe.

Lightning cracked in the sky and the rain started pouring down, the world looking like how I felt. Dark, gray, and completely bleak.

I doubted I would ever see sunshine again. Without Roman in my life, I knew cold detachment would be my sole emotion.

Roman was the only person I had ever met who made me feel something other than cold, angry, or indifferent. He had brought me to life, and because he had given me that gift, even though it was brief, I had to give him this. It was the only way.

I had to give him his freedom from me.

I told myself over and over that I wasn’t waiting for him to stop me. That I didn’t care if he stayed silent. If he let me leave without even a fight, then clearly, I really was making the right choice because he agreed, too.

Gregor had asked me why, as I handed everything over to him. He asked me why I was turning my back on his cousin, and I told him the truth. All of it.

I could never give him the life he wanted, the one he deserved.

The wives had been right. Roman was going to make an excellent father someday. I just wasn’t going to be the mother of his children.

Just thinking about that twisted the knife deeper in my gut, and the tears burned hotter behind my eyes. I couldn’t let them fall, even as he was letting me go.

I lied to myself over and over.

No, I wasn’t hurting.

This was what I wanted.

This was what I deserved.

I was making the right choice for me, and the right choice for him.

I was happy, excited about being able to restart my life in Russia.

If I said it enough, I would start to believe it.

The exit sign for the airport came into view. I was minutes from telling him goodbye. What was I going to say? How was I going to get on that plane?

Roman didn’t slow down.

He drove right past it, and my stomach dropped.

“Roman?”

He didn’t answer.

My pulse kicked up a notch. “Roman, you missed the exit.”

Still, he said nothing.

A chill crawled up my spine. I knew this was too easy.

Roman was too much of a control freak, too domineering to just let me walk away, and Gregor had what he wanted.

I reached for the door handle by instinct. Locked.

What if giving the money back wasn’t enough? Did Gregor tell him to get rid of me anyway?

Panic tightened my throat, and I yanked at the door handle again. Still locked.

My head snapped toward him, fear filling my words. “What the hell are you doing?”

He didn’t glance at me. He didn’t react. His hands stayed on the wheel, his jaw tight, and his eyes gleamed with determination as they stared at the road ahead. “I’m not taking you to the airport.”

My stomach crunched, and my heart froze. “Unlock the door, Roman.”

He didn’t move.

I reached out and pressed the button to unlock it myself, but he locked it again just as quickly.

Again and again I unlocked it just for him to relock it and then he engaged the child locks.

My entire body burned with fury, with fear, and with something primal and raw. I thought we had an understanding. I was foolish to believe that I was going to escape this man.

He had lured me into a false sense of security and now I was an animal, backed into a corner again.

“Where are you taking me?” I screamed.

His fingers flexed on the steering wheel. His words came low, steady, and unbreakable.

“To the church.”

The church, I repeated in my head, not quite understanding.

The church?

My eyes opened wide as comprehension set in.

“No,” I said, the breath ripped from my lungs on a single word.

He didn’t respond. He sat there like a statue focused on the road; the car speeding up on the slick asphalt as we sped down the highway further from my freedom and closer to the church.

A part of me almost wished he was taking me to some warehouse to kill me. But no. This was so much worse.

“Roman, turn this car around,” I demanded.

My demands were met with complete silence.

I slammed my palm against the dashboard. “Damn it, Roman. You can’t do this. I won’t allow it.”

He let out a slow breath, controlled, unshaken. “I didn’t ask for permission. I won’t be asking for forgiveness.”

The storm grew heavier, raindrops hitting the windshield of the car and then flying off the sides in rivulets. The sky darkened and thunder rumbled.

Then the car pulled up to a small, old Russian Orthodox church, a single ray of sunlight shining through a break in the clouds and hitting the top of its golden dome.

Really? Even the sun was mocking me now?

I didn’t care if that single ray of sunlight in this dark storm was a sign from God himself. I couldn’t let Roman do this.

Roman deserved better. He deserved a woman who could give him the life he wanted.

He deserved a woman who could give him…give him…children.

Roman killed the engine and got out of the car.

I stayed put.

I sat completely still, staring at my hands, trying to figure out what to do.

Tears spilled down my face and onto my fingers as I swiped them away, my mind racing, trying to come up with some plan. Some excuse, some explanation that he would understand.

Roman opened my door and offered me his hand.

I didn’t move.

“Get out,” he said.

I shook my head. “No.”

He didn’t push. He didn’t move.

Rain poured down on him, but he didn’t react to it at all.

He was waiting for something. I wasn’t sure what.

My hands trembled in my lap. “I can’t.”

He squatted down next to the car. His fingers reached out to brush my chin as he guided my face to turn and face him. His gaze burned into mine. “Why?”

Why? It was such a simple question.

I swallowed, forcing myself to breathe. Forcing myself to tell the truth that I had been running from. He deserved that much. Maybe if I got him to see the truth, he would realize why I couldn’t walk into that church. Why I couldn’t marry him, and he’d take me to that plane.

“Because I love you, you bastard,” I whispered, my words ragged as I suppressed the sobs clawing their way out of my throat. “And I shouldn’t. It isn’t fair.”

The words hung in the air, curling like smoke in the small space between us.

Roman didn’t move.

Didn’t blink. But something in his entire body shifted. Like the storm changing course.

The rain around him slowed, but I barely noticed. The storm behind his eyes was far fiercer.

“You love me,” he said. His voice was low, wrecked, something close to a growl but barely a whisper. “And you think that’s a reason to leave me?”

I let out a bitter laugh.

Of course, he wouldn’t understand. Of course, I would have to spell it out for him, even though it killed me. Each word I said out loud was a stab to the heart.

“I wouldn’t make a good wife. You know this, Roman. I’m the enemy. I’m an outsider. You can’t keep me around your family. I don’t belong here, I don’t belong with you, and it doesn’t matter how much I want you, I will never belong here.”

He leaned in so closely I could see the gold flecks in his dark eyes. “Who cares? If you don’t feel like you belong here, then we will go somewhere else. I’ve spent my entire life as an outsider. For you, I will happily spend the rest of it the same way.”

I clenched my fists. The truth coating my tongue like a sour film. “I can’t give you children.”

Roman was silent for a beat.

I wasn’t sure what I expected of him. Would he say he understood and then get back in the car and take me to the airport? Berate me for being broken and useless, like my father did when the doctor told him of my condition?

I braced myself, waiting for his dismissal, his rejection. He just took a long, slow exhale. Then he straightened up, his arms moving to my shoulders, and he pulled me from the car and into his arms, pressing me to his rain-soaked chest in a hug that was so warm, so soothing.

He still said nothing, just stood there and held me for a minute before his hand went back to my jaw.

Tilting it up again, he looked at me, meeting my eyes, showing me the truth and the vulnerability in his. “Do you really think that’s what this is about?”

He spoke softly, soothingly, almost gently.

I looked away, pulling my face out of his hand.

He just reached back for me, this time cupping the side of my face as he guided my eyes back to his.

“Zoya,” he said in a reverent tone. “I don’t give a damn about bloodlines, or heirs, or any other bullshit this world expects of me. I never have. Yes, the Ivanovs have traditions, but I don’t give a damn about traditions, or rules, or what anyone else thinks. Fuck other people’s expectations.”

His thumb brushed over my lips.

“You are my family,” he murmured. “You. Not some unborn child. Not some legacy.”

My breath hitched.

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him with everything I had, but how?

His fingers tightened on the side of my face, his forehead nearly brushing mine. “You are my home, my little warrior. My war. My peace. The only damn thing in this world that makes sense to me.”

My vision blurred as more tears streamed down my face.

God, he meant it. He meant every single word, and it broke me.

I turned away from him, dropping back onto the car seat and pressing fingers to my temples. He didn’t know what he was saying.

He might mean it now, but what about in five years, ten years, when all of his cousins had enormous families with kids running around everywhere, and he didn’t? How could he be okay with just being an uncle and never a father?

“This is insane.”

Roman shifted back on his heels, waiting.

Because he already knew the truth I wasn’t strong enough to accept.

He already knew that I wasn’t leaving.

I couldn’t. It didn’t matter how much I told myself over and over that it was the right thing to do. I knew deep down it wasn’t.

Roman was my home, too.

Maybe he knew I never intended to leave, not really.

I let out a long, shuddering breath. Then I stepped out of the car and into his arms.

The cold air bit at my skin as the wind whipped around us and together, we stepped over the wet ground, dodging puddles as I stared up at the church that would bind me to the one man who’d ever truly understood me.

He was the only one who would ever appreciate my value, as more than just being a woman, or being pretty.

Roman saw the woman I was and not just what I could give him.

He saw my drive. He was the only one who saw my intelligence, and he saw through the mask that I had spent my life carefully cultivating.

Hand in hand, we walked together up the concrete steps.

I turned to him before we got to the door, chest rising, heart hammering against my ribs.

“Are you sure?” I whispered, giving him one last chance to run.

His lips curved.

“I was sure the first time I put a gun to your head, and you smirked at me.”

A sharp, broken laugh escaped me.

He pulled me into his arms and placed a kiss on my forehead, making me feel cherished. “Let’s get married, my fierce printsessa .”

This time I didn’t run.

Not from him, not from the life that I wanted but was too afraid I couldn’t have.

That little girl inside of me, the one who believed in happily ever after, wasn’t dead after all.

She was just waiting for her prince.