Page 83 of Devil's Vows

I’m handing her over on a platter, just like my first wife got handed over to me.

But Luca Scalera will play nicely. I have his little sister.

My mind fills with Gabriella and how to actuallyaskher. I’m not sure why I have the burning need to propose, but it’s probably driven by my experience the first time around. I met my first wife at the altar, our fates decided by others. I’m not entitled to more, but somehow, I want this to be different.

At least we’ve had time to get to know each other, and she’s wriggled straight into my daughters’ hearts. If I don’t watch out, my own walls could crumble when it comes to her. Reminder:this is a business arrangement, and the end goal is sons. I only need two, and then I’d set her free.

I scoot down the bed and walk to the corridor, closing the bedroom door behind me. The security gate still stands open, but so does Gabriella’s door. I spot her sitting in her wingback, her Bible in her lap.

“Come have a drink with me,” I say, holding out my hand.

Earlier, she didn’t pull away as we walked from the garden into the house, and it encouraged me. She’s warming up to the idea.

“Okay.” She stands, puts the Bible on her nightstand, and straightens her shirt with nervous fingers. “I don’t really drink…and I think Milana might have drunk you out of house and home.”

I smirk. “I have my own stock.” Instead of taking her hand in mine, I put my hand on the small of her back and guide her down the stairs. “This way.”

“Where’re we going?” she asks when we reach the first floor and I take a turn in a direction she wouldn’t have gone yet.

“My office.” To remind myself this is a business proposal, nothing more. It’s bad enough that I’ve been obsessively stalking her through my security cameras, I can’t afford to develop feelings for a woman who’d prefer to have me at arm’s length as soon as she’s served her purpose.

Fuck. I’m an idiot.She’s already crawled under my skin, on her way to my dark, decrepit heart. I’m trying to fool myself, just like I did with Darya, until I realized how fucked up she was.

But I can’t go down that path. This marriage will work and it will be on my terms.

I have her by the hand now and I open the door to my office at the end of the corridor. It used to be Papa’s, and I still see him sitting behind the desk, hands calmly folded, in charge. Nothing ever shook him.

Or maybe some things did, and I was just too young to realize it. What do we really know about the people in our lives who we got to know from a kid’s perspective, slowly inching our way through life to adulthood while they were living it? Not much.

Gabriella gasps. “Oh, it’s so beautiful.”

It’s one of the few rooms that wasn’t subjected to the barrage of bullets that hailed down on this house. Papa bought it on auction and imported the old wooden cabinetry from Russia, from one of the noble Russian houses no less, and reassembled it here. It’s a miracle it’s still intact with row upon row of leather-bound and gold-embossed books in Russian. A great nation of literary geniuses. Papa read them all.

“Here. Sit down.” I let go of her hand as she sits in the chair facing the desk, then close the window shutters, providing us with privacy. When I switch on a reading lamp, it casts the room in an antique glow, reminiscent of slower times.

I hover at the side cabinet where I keep some booze. Whisky, vodka, brandy, every hard liquor a man loves to toss down on a tough day. Nothing suitable for a barely legal drinking-aged convent girl whodoesn’t really drink. And I don’t want her drunk, just fake-happy. Maybe it would be a real happy. Who knows.

I pour two glasses of neat whisky, because the vodka I have would burn a hole straight through her stomach, and I can’t have that. I hand her a glass, and we each take a few contemplative sips.

She grows bold and drinks deeper, but coughs and splutters, trying to be suave about it. I bite down on my lip to hide a smile.

“Marry me?” I ask as she looks up, eyes watery from the whisky’s punch.

She sniffs. “Just like that?”

“How else?”

I asked, didn’t I? It strikes me this isn’t very romantic, so I take the glass from her, put it with mine on the desk, and drop to my knees in front of her.

I reach for her hand, press a kiss to her trembling fingers, and ask again, “Marry me?”

She giggles. “Just like that?”

Blyad’. The alcohol hits this one fast.

“How else?” I repeat. I’d have expected ayesby now.

“Are my brothers behind this?”