Page 105 of The Promise

Karine weaved her fingers with his. There was a hitch in her breath, a soft hiccup, when she said, “Lizabeta.”

“Your mother?”

She shrugged. “I think so.”

“I don’t have a ring, but I promise I’ll get you any single one that you want. If you want to have it designed, we can do that, too. Whatever you wa—”

“What I want is you. I don’t care about a ring.”

So honest.

And true.

Her smile deepened again at his wink, and Roman decided to just go for it. The I love you part of this whole thing had been easy when he simply said it, no hesitating. He wanted this to be exactly the same.

Because it was easy.

Love should be.

“Well, you better think about what you wanna say because I’m asking you to marry me, Karine Lizabeta Yazov.”

He thought she might take a second. Even if only to absorb him actually saying it, but her whispered yes fell from her trembling, pink lips the moment he finished asking.

Nothing had ever sounded so good.

Roman was up from the ground and kissing Karine before she could blink, when she did, he felt the splash of her tears from her dark eyelashes to his cheeks. He kissed every single one of those away, but that didn’t hide the questions he still found staring back in her eyes.

He wondered if she would ask them.

She was getting better at that.

It was her hand sliding down his chest that had Roman pulling away with a painful hiss. A reminder for both of them that his pain meant they were still in a dire situation.

“Sorry,” she was quick to say.

But Roman had her hand back in his, crushed against his aching ribs and her body tight against his own in the next breath. “It’s fine.”

His lips found her forehead.

He lingered there.

Karine asked, “What about Dima, and—”

“We’re gonna do one thing right now, babe. And won’t be worrying about him.”

He said it with confidence—even if it wasn’t something that he truly felt. That was Roman’s problem. He’d been taught to believe he could do anything simply because he said he could. It gave him an arrogance like no other that had served him better than well over the years.

It also made his failures all the more catastrophic, even if he had spent years drowning them in money and drugs.

This wouldn’t be one of those.

It couldn’t.

• • •

Money talked, bullshit walked.

And Roman had a lot of it.