Page 53 of The Russian's Revenge Bride
“Eleanor….”
“Don’t. Don’t give me some bullshit about needing space to think. We almost died today, Maxim. I watched you kill two men to save my life, and now you’re lying here acting like you’re afraid to touch me.”
“Maybe I am.”
The honesty in his voice caught me off guard. “Afraid of what?”
“Of this. Of us. Of what happens when you really understand what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
I sat up fully, pulling his shirt around me like armor. “I think I have a pretty good fucking idea of what I’ve gotten myself into. I married a man who traffics weapons and kills people for a living. A man whose enemies just tried to murder me in broad daylight. I’m not naive, Maxim.”
“You say that now.”
“I’ll say it tomorrow too. And the day after that.”
He shook his head, something bitter flickering across his features. “Our worlds don’t match, Eleanor. You’re sunshine and designer gowns and charity galas. I’m blood and violence and the kind of choices that keep normal people awake at night.”
“So?”
“So one day you’re going to wake up and see me for what I really am. You’re going to hate me for dragging you into this darkness, for making you complicit in things that would have horrified the woman you used to be.”
“Like my father.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them, and I saw him flinch like I’d struck him.
“What?”
“You think I hate my father because of his business dealings. Because he’s cold and ruthless and does shady shit to get what he wants.”
“Don’t you?”
I swallowed hard, feeling the familiar knot of pain that always came when I thought about William Beaumont and the empty space where his love should have been.
“No. I hate him because he always made me feel like I didn’t matter to him. Like I was just another asset to be managed, another piece on his chessboard. I could have forgiven the corruption, the violence, all of it, if he’d just made me feel like I was worth something to him.”
Maxim stared at me, his expression unreadable. “Eleanor….”
“You want to know the difference between you and him?” I reached out, taking his face in both hands, feeling the rough stubble beneath my palms. “You make me feel like I’m the most important thing in your world. Like you’d burn it all down to keep me safe. That’s not something I’m going to wake up and hate you for, Maxim. That’s something I’m going to treasure for the rest of my life.”
For a moment, he looked younger. Vulnerable in a way that made my chest tight with the need to protect him from whatever ghosts were haunting him.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said quietly.
“Then tell me. Show me. Stop trying to protect me from who you are and let me decide if I can handle it.”
He brushed his knuckles along my jaw, the touch feather-light and reverent. “And if you can’t? If it becomes too much?”
“Then I’ll tell you. But I won’t run, Maxim. I won’t disappear in the night or file for divorce or pretend this never happened. If we’re going to fall apart, we’ll do it honestly, face to face, like adults.”
“Promise me.” His voice was rough with something that might have been desperation. “No matter what happens, no matter how dark it gets, promise me you won’t leave without telling me why.”
The request hit me like a physical blow. This was it, the heart of his fear. Not that I’d hate him for what he did, but that I’d abandon him the way everyone else in his life had. That I’d become another ghost haunting his nightmares, another person he’d failed to keep.
“I promise,” I whispered, meaning it with every fiber of my being.
Something shifted in his expression, relief and terror and desperate hope all warring for dominance. Then he was pulling me down to him, his mouth finding mine with a hunger that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the need to believe that this was real.
The kiss started soft, questioning, like he was asking permission for something he’d already been given. But then I responded, opening for him, letting him taste the promise on my tongue, and it turned into something deeper. Hungrier.