The word landed heavy between us.
“Why?” My voice cracked on the single syllable.
He exhaled slowly, like he was choosing each breath with care.
“Because we can’t let your father know about us,” he said. “Not yet.”
“And when is yet?” I snapped, surprised even by the sharpness in my own tone. “When he marries me off to someone?”
Something dark passed through Maksym’s expression.
“You know I won’t allow that,” he said.
The certainty in his voice chilled me—and, somehow, comforted me too.
I kept looking at him, searching his face for something—anything—that would explain the storm he’d dragged me through.
Instead of coming closer, he dropped to his knees in front of me.
My breath caught.
I pushed myself up on my elbows, then sat up fully, staring at him. “Maksym… what are you—”
“Wait.” His voice cut in, low, rough. Not sharp—just… steady. Like he was holding himself together by force.
He looked up, and the sight gutted me. Eyes full of guilt, regret, something close to despair.A man who never bent, never begged—kneeling for me.
It hurt to look at him like that.
But the memory of his voice last night hurt just as much.
“I’m so fucking sorry you had to go through that,” he said, voice thick. “Nothing I said last night was real. Nothing. Please… forgive me.”
I just stared at him.
Part of me wanted to yank him up, smooth that shattered look off his face, tell him it was okay. The other part remembered every cutting syllable he’d thrown at me like knives—and it kept me frozen.
Slowly he reached for my hands. His grip was firm, warm, unyielding. He lifted one, pressed a slow kiss to the knuckles, then the other—reverent, deliberate. Then he turned them over, lips brushing my palms like he was trying to erase the memory of his own cruelty with his mouth.
My chest squeezed painfully.
For a second, he held my hands there—then let them go.
His fingers caught the hem of his hoodie. In one rough motion, he dragged it over his head and tossed it aside.
I couldn’t look away. The line of his shoulders, the controlled tension running through every muscle… it looked like even this small act of undressing was costing him something. Like he was peeling himself open, layer by layer.
He took my hands again, more carefully this time, and pressed them flat against his bare chest.
Warm. Solid. Real.
His heartbeat slammed under my palms.
He dropped his forehead to mine for a second, jaw tight, like the words physically hurt to say.
“I’m shit at this. I know that,” he admitted, quieter now. “I should’ve said it the first time I felt it. Which was a long fucking time ago.”
He pressed my hands harder against his chest, right over the violent thud of his heart.
