Page 154 of Fractured Ties

She only rolled her eyes and laughed again.

Then, quieter, he said, “We need to get married.”

Maya blinked, unsure she had even heard him right. “What?”

“Married. Rings. That … bit, yeah?”

“Married,” she echoed.

“If you want to,” he said, kissing her skin again.

“Is that a proposal?”

She didn’t even care that this was how he asked. Just that he had.

“I think it is,” Kolya said.

Maya turned her head just enough to catch his kiss with her own before she whispered against his mouth, “Then that’s a yes.”

If only that could have been how the rest of their morning was spent. Instead, the phone started ringing again and Kolya pulled away. He left the bed with a slowness that told her he was sore, and that morning fuck hadn’t helped.

She didn’t have time to think on it for long before he found his phone. Just by the cold expression that drifted over his face before he answered the call, she knew it wasn’t going to be good.

“Vadim,” Kolya greeted. “What can I do for you today?”

A month and a day.

That was all Vadim gave Kolya to recover.

One month.

And one single day.

“I’ll be at the Compound in an hour, then,” Kolya said.

Maya knew better than to ask him to stay, or to point out that he wasn’t close to being ready to go back to work for his father. She knew better, because this was his life and he’d chosen it.

She chose him.

“Blue is your favorite color, isn’t it?” he asked as he headed for the walk-in closet. He came back out with a suit in hand and a pair of shoes. “Is that what you’d prefer?”

Maya tucked the sheet close to her chest and sat up in the bed properly. “For what?”

“An engagement ring.”

How could she not smile?

Even though she was worried …

Even though she was angry …

Even hoping he would be okay …

She smiled for him when he looked her way. She was going to make sure that her smile was the first and last thing he saw every time he left their home or came back. It was the one thing she could promise he would always have when everyone else just wanted to take from him.

She would give.

Maya would always be the one who gave.