Page 8 of His Forced Bride

I like the fire I sense inside her spirit.

It will do us both good in the coming days, but I will have to bend it my direction or she will be a handful.

"Your company provides excellent cover for certain financial activities," I reply carefully.

"Fashion is international, involves large cash transactions, and draws little regulatory attention when managed properly."

"You want to use my business to launder money?"

Her eyes narrow at me, as if she doesn’t already realize what sort of man her father was and what business transactions we've been involved in.

"Your father and I had arrangements that benefited everyone involved. Those arrangements don't have to die with him."

She turns away, watching the paramedics prepare to load her father's body into the ambulance.

The ivory silk of her dress catches the rotating emergency lights, creating an almost ethereal glow around her slender frame.

Even with dried blood on her porcelain skin, she's ravishing.

Maybe more so.

She is in this world and not surprised by it, so there's nothing to lose in plucking her low-hanging fruit.

"My position is complicated now," she finally says.

"Without Batya's guidance, without the marriage alliance…"

"The marriage alliance doesn't have to disappear."

She turns back to face me, confusion replacing some of the grief in her expression. "Dominic is dead."

"Yes. But the need for an alliance between our families remains. Your company still requires protection. My operations still need legitimate businesses to process transactions. The benefits of partnership haven't changed."

Understanding dawns in her eyes, followed immediately by shock.

She sputters for a second, clenching her hands in her dress as she looks around frantically.

I follow her eyes and see another young woman staring at us, perhaps a friend.

But Inessa's words snap me back to attention.

"You cannot be suggesting…"

"Marriage," I tell her, dropping my tone to a low growl. "To me."

My suggestion is audacious and practical in equal measure, and I surprise myself with how confidently it rolls off my tongue as if I've been planning it for days and not only just stumbled upon it.

She stares at me, jaw hanging, as if I've proposed something obscene, which perhaps I have.

But desperation breeds unconventional solutions, and we're both desperate now—or she will be when the cloud of grief passes.

"You're my dead fiancé's father," she whispers, and she takes a minute step backward, so small I'd have thought it was the wind tossing her dress, but there is no breeze.

"I'm the man who can keep your empire intact while you're grieving and vulnerable."

"This is madness." Inessa shakes her head, taking a larger step away from me, and while I'd like to shake her hard to wake her up, I can't be seen as coercive if I want her to comply with me.

I slide a hand into the small of her back and one on her shoulder, pulling her into my tight embrace, as if comforting a grieving daughter.