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“The only thing I accomplished was hurting you, and that was the last goddamn thing I wanted to do. Everything started off wrong, I admit that. But it changed the night I met you, Sofia.” She huffed and turned her head away, but not before I saw a flicker of something deep in those beautiful blue eyes that gave me a glimmer of hope. “When you told me you loved me for the first time, everything shifted in my world. Knowing that you were going to be the mother of my child, that no matter what happens, we will always be connected through a baby we created together, that was the moment I felt like the most powerful man in the world.”
“I bet,” she muttered, turning her head away once again.
“Not because of Oleksandr!” I shouted and quickly lowered my voice when she flinched. “Because you were giving me something I hadn’t realized until that very moment I craved. A family of my own. Someone who loved me with their entire being, and she was giving me a child we could raise and love together. The way I’d secretly dreamed of being loved when I was a child.”
She didn’t shift her head, but I could feel some of the tension ease from her muscles.
“You might not understand this yet, but when Yulia gave you up for adoption, she actually saved you from certain doom. Being raised with Oleksandr, even if just in the background, would have ruined you.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I nearly ruined myself, actually. But when my parents sent me away to stay with Raven and her family, they saved me. It took me longer than I care to admit, but I finally found salvation through their tough love.”
“No,dragotsennyy. You think you were bad before, but under Oleksandr’s rule, you would have been a hundred times worse.” I kept one arm around her, continuing to hold her arms in place, but I stroked my hand over her hair with my now free hand before turning her head so she was looking at me. “You say Raven and her family saved you from yourself, but it is you I have to be thankful to for saving me. Your love, it changed my entire life. Sofia, I would still be lost if you hadn’t touched my cold, bleak world with your kind, beautiful heart.”
Tears glazed her eyes, and she swallowed with difficulty for a moment before choking out, “You say that now, but you would have betrayed me in the end. Oleksandr was more important to you than me or even our baby.”
“Never!” I breathed vehemently. “Oleksandr might have liked to think that, but he knew my loyalties had shifted. He wasn’t blind to the fact that you were the one who held me enthralled. He was scrambling to find a way to drive a wedge between us, because he knew all his plans were washing down the drain faster and faster. Because of how much I love you.”
“He would have succeeded eventually.”
I laughed at how funny that statement was. “He could have tried, but he never would have gotten the results he wanted. What happened tonight? That was Olena’s and Yulia’s desire to be rid of Oleks. But I was already thinking of how to get rid of his body once I put a bullet in his brain. You told me you wouldn’t make me choose between you and the man who raised me, but the same couldn’t have been said about him. He would have made me pick, and he would have rubbed his hands together gleefully, thinking I would choose him.” I stroked my fingers over her cheek and was rewarded when she leaned into my touch. “But there was no choice to make.”
Holding her breath, she stared down at me, waiting for me to continue.
“I will always choose you, Sofia.” Releasing her arms, I touched her belly where our baby was. “You and this child are all I need. Not Oleksandr or the power he wanted so desperately. Not my country or my businesses. Not even Olena or Yulia, whom I care for dearly as a mother and sister. There is only you and us. The life we can have together.”
Her mouth opened in a soft gasp. “Zak… I…”
“If you need time to learn to trust me again, I completely understand. If marriage is something you decide you truly never want, I will accept that. But with or without you as my wife, I can’t make it through this life without you at my side.” Tears spilled down my face before I even realized they were close to the surface. “Don’t leave me,dorogaya. Please, I-I beg of you. Don’t rip apart this beautiful world that you have bestowed upon me.”
Sofia
The sight of Zak’s tears pushed me over the edge. Grabbing his face in both my hands, I kissed him so hard our teeth clacked together. But that didn’t seem to matter to him because he took control of the kiss. He thrust his tongue into my mouth, and I was lost.
For so many hours, I’d thought I would never have this again. Never taste him, never feel his hands on me. Never think that he would love me.
I’d lost hope—in myself, in him, and especially in us.
But after everything that had happened with Oleksandr, and then seeing Zak’s tears, I knew I’d been wrong. The toxicity that had tried so desperately to invade my happiness was gone now, and I felt just the bliss of knowing that I was with the man who loved me beyond all else.
“I love you,” he breathed against my lips before hungrily trailing kisses down my neck. “You aren’t just my heart, Sofia. You are my life. The goddamn air that fills my world so that I can breathe. Don’t leave me.”
I thrust my fingers into his hair and clenched, pulling him back just enough so I could see his golden eyes. “I love you too. I-I won’t leave you, but there will be conditions.”
“Name them.”
“No more secrets,” I started. “No lying, even by omission. We tell each other everything, even if it makes one of us angry.”
“Done.” He ran his hands over my body, making it hard to think.
I gulped. “This baby will stay a Volkov, even if I do eventually decide to marry you. I don’t want any part of the Davydov or Morozov family name to touch our child.”
“I agree. Let that fucking line die out with me. I don’t give a fuck.” Zak started sucking on my neck. “Tell me you love me again,dorogaya.”
“I-I love you,” I moaned, tilting my head to the side to give him better access. “Zak, wait. I’m not done.”
“Name your rules. Your stipulations. I will agree to any negotiations. Just don’t fucking leave me.”
“We…we live here in New York. I won’t go back to your home country.”
