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Not exactly the image you need in your head when you’re kissing your future wife.
“What other reason could I have for marrying her?”
Taylor’s resolve fractures with uncertainty. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to discover that she’s working off nothing but vague, airy suspicions. I can deal with that. Or I could have—if it weren’t for the fact that she’s apparently carrying my child.
“The baby,” I say, making her flinch. “Are you keeping it?”
She jerks her face up to mine. “Of course you’d ask that. God, all men are the same. Well, fuck you—I’m not doing that. I decided this morning that I’m keeping the baby.”
The assumption rankles me. It would have made this easier, of course—but I’m not the man she thinks I am. I’m not the beast she’s painting me out to be.
At least, not entirely.
“If you’re keeping the baby, then there are things that need to be figured out,” I rumble.
“No need. I’ve already figured it all out,” she replies immediately. “You disappear from all our lives, I raise this baby on my own, and my sister gets to meet someone who actually loves her and actuallywantsto marry her.”
I nearly laugh before I realize just how unblinkingly serious she is. “That’s your plan?”
“Sure is. And it’s a good one.”
“It’s also a fantasy. I’m not breaking up with Celine, and I’m certainly not going to allow you to raise this baby on your own.”
She stops short, her face coloring with shock. “Y-you… Wait, what?”
“What is it, Taylor?” I ask, annoyed with how sweet and forbidden her name tastes on my lips. “Does that not fit in with your assessment of my character?”
“Y-you can’t be in this child’s life,” she says as the color on her cheeks spreads to her chest. “That’s not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because of Celine!” she spits at me.
I shrug. “Celine might be upset at first, but she’ll understand. I didn’t know her when you and I met. What she won’t understand is why you’re trying to convince me to end things with her.”
I’m dangerously close to hitting a nerve. If she keeps fighting, I’m done pulling my punches.
Taylor takes a deep breath. I watch as her chest rises and falls, her breasts straining at the thin fabric. It wouldn’t take much at all to rip that off of her. I could do it with one hand. Then she’d be bare and flushed beneath me, wet and willing and ready, and I could do what I’ve been dreaming of doing again for ten endless fucking weeks.
“You don’t know me very well, Ilarion,” she hisses. “Because if you did, you’d know that I love my sister more than anyone else in the world. Celine is the best person out there. But she doesn’t know that the rest of the world isn’t as pure as she is. She chooses to believe the best in people, she trusts without reason, and she gives strangers the benefit of the doubt even when they don’t deserve it. I want her to be happy. And she’s not going to be happy with a man who doesn’t love her.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions, Taylor.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think I am. What I’m doing is trying to protect Celine.”
“Mm. And how did you justify what happened with Alec Miller?”
She flushes again. White-hot hurt blooms across her collarbone
It’s obvious to anyone watching that I hit a nerve, and a painful one at that. But I’ve got the entire Zakharov Bratva resting on the razor’s edge of this moment. I’m not about to back down now simply to save this little bleeding heart.
“That…that was not the same thing…”
I hedge closer, pressing her back against the wall. “Do you think Celine will see it that way?”
Tears bead up in the corners of her eyes. They aren’t because of me, though. They’re because of Celine. Because the only way I’d know about Alec Miller is if Celine told me about him. If the hurt that Taylor caused her sister was still fresh and vibrant in Celine’s heart.
It is. She put it there. She has only herself to blame.
