Page 47 of Owned Bratva Bride

I could almost feel my heart in my mouth when his hands touched the hem of my dress. His eyes stayed on mine as he lifted the dress over my head. He didn’t look below my face.

He took a white towel from a drawer beside him and wrapped it around me. Holding the thick towel close to my body, I looked up at him.

The shivers running through my body had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with his unexpected actions. My chest tightened as his gentle care washed over me.

When the yelling and outburst I expected still didn’t come, I blurted out, “Why?”

“Why what?” he asked.

“Why did you hurt me? Or…or do anything?”

A sincere look crossed his features as he looked away and then at me.

“Hurting you won’t do me any good,” he muttered.

Swallowing softly, I left his room.

I paced the length of my room, his words echoing in my mind. The look on his face shook me to the core. It looked like…surrender.

But that wasn’t the only look that haunted me.

When he gripped me, he looked at me like I wasn’t just a hostage escaping. The rain couldn’t conceal how he looked at me like someone who mattered.

I groaned in frustration as I thought of how I felt about all of it.

A part of me didn’t want him to let me go.

Oh, no.

Chapter 10 – Eduard

Sleep evaded me, again.

Marielle’s escape attempt didn’t leave my mind.

When I saw her approaching the back door through the security monitor screens, I could have asked my men to bring her back. Asking the men guarding the gate to block her once she got past the outer gates was another option. But I couldn’t go with either.

It felt personal.

As I watched her get out of the back door, it didn’t feel like she was running away from the estate.

It felt like she was running away fromme.

And that unsettled me more than having a target on my back. I felt the urgent, albeit unreasonable, need to reclaim her.

I removed my suit jacket in a flash and dashed out of my office.

There was no doubt in my mind about catching her.

I knew I would.

I should be happy that she was leaving the house. It would mean I could breathe and sleep without thinking of how beautiful she was on the screen and in the flesh. Her escape should mean freedom for me. A freedom that I could even blame my men for. I could punish the men who left their posts and allowed her escape. Then everything would be normal again.

But I didn’t want that.

I realized I didn’t have my phone as I got into the rain. She was getting close to the outer gates.

That meant my men there could shoot her without any questions. It was what they were there for. They knew she wasn’t a domestic staff member, so they had every reason to think she was either trespassing or spying. Questioning wasn’t in their job description.