AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My cheeks warm. Is that really how he sees me? It’s in a much more positive light than I would have guessed.
“I want children,” he continues. “I want a home full of love and warmth, the kind of family I never had.”
Family seems to be a value we both share. While I grew up in a strict yet nurturing environment, Dimitri was abandoned, orphaned, and endured so many hardships.
My heart breaks for him a little more.
Suddenly, seeing how he interacted with the kids at the orphanage casts him in a whole new light. He feels a sense of family and connection there that he didn’t have growing up. Maybe he even feels like he can experience a different type of childhood by being around those children. In a sense, they are his family.
“You deserve the kind of family you want,” I tell him. “Plenty of women would love to create that life with you.”
“Just not you?” His expression shutters, impossible to read.
“Just not me.” For some reason this statement doesn’t land quite right. It burns like a lie on my tongue.
“Maybe I can change your mind.” He stands, prowling closer to me. His impassive features give way to lust.
“You can’t,” I say, but my heart races. “Above all else, I want out of this life. As far away from the mafia world as possible.”
Dimitri drops to his knees in the sand. He lifts and repositions my chair so I’m facing him, his fingers curl around the sides. “Why? Why do you want out so badly?”
CHAPTER 28
Dimitri
Arianna’s brows draw together, her expression tormented. My heart twists, pulse accelerating with the need to protect her from any and all potential danger. Except I can’t, because whatever’s hurting her comes from within. I don’t want to interrogate her, but I need to know the truth.
I dip my head, capturing her tortured gaze. “Tell me, kisa. Let me understand you.”
“I-Ilaria.” Her voice breaks. “We grew up together. We were so young when we met that I don’t even remember it, she was just always there, like a third sister.” She closes her eyes and releases a shaky breath. “Until one day she wasn’t. Her father sold her when she was sixteen. We never even had a chance to say goodbye.”
A lead weight drops in my gut. A father sold his own daughter? I can relate to that all too well.
“That was the first time I realized how messed up this world is,” she continues. “When parents sell their own children, who they’re supposed to love and protect, there’s no safe place for anyone here. I became terrified that my father would do the same to my sisters and me. In a way, I was right to be afraid.”
She lifts her sorrowful gaze to mine. “Arranged marriages are much the same thing, under a different name. After everything that happened with my older sister Sophia’s engagement, I knew I had to leave. This cycle will never end—not really. If I have children with a man like you they’ll never be safe.”
For a second, I’m speechless. Is that what she thinks of me? That I’d sell off my own children? Really? White hot fury burns in my chest.
“I was fucking sold by own father. I know exactly what that feels like and I’d never do that to another person, least of all my own child,” I say vehemently. She needs to understand my sincerity.
“But you already have,” she whispers. “You bought me. Not with currency, but with threats. Which means you forced my father to sell me. To you. How do you not understand that?”
“I—” My brows crash down.
She’s right.
I thought I could claim her as my own, and by pure force of will she’d eventually want to be mine. How could I have been so wrong? I’ve been fucking blind to the suffering I’ve put her through. I need to wake the fuck up.
I’ve already tied her to me in every way possible—except her heart isn’t mine. She can wear my ring, be my wedded wife, and share my bed, but if I don’t have her heart then what’s the point? If I can’t win her over… then I have to let her go, don’t I? As much as I can’t stand that idea.
How is it that she’s taken over my heart in such a short amount of time? To the point that I actually would let her go because I… I love her.
There. I admit it. But when did she become so much more than an obsession? Can obsession turn into genuine love?
Stalking her meant I only saw the shell of who she is inside. Bringing her into my life was my undoing. She stole my heart away with her pearl-clutching innocence, the defiance she showed when trying to burn down my penthouse, and when she helped me through that agonizing charity dinner. She could have turned her back on me that night and made me look foolish, but she didn’t.
The final moment, the one in which I think I completely fell for her, is when she pulled that trigger. She should have killed me, we both know it, but she saved my life instead.
