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CLARA
Stunned, I got off the phone with my father and dropped backward into Tatum’s plush bed. My cell phone slid out of my hand and clattered to the floor. What the hell was I going to do? I wished Tatum were here with me. I’d burrow into his broad chest and take shelter from this crazy world. Normal women didn’t have to contend with these kinds of problems. Hell, not even normal mafie women.
Head swimming, I turned over and tucked my hands beneath my cheek and gazed outside the window, staring blindly at the clouds drifting by.
This was how Tatum found me.
I shifted my head slightly as I heard him step into the bedroom, my gaze landing on him. He was as arresting as ever. His tawny hair was tousled, likely from the brisk wind outside. I hadn’t been outside today myself, but I’d watched the clouds zip by from my perch, high above the rest of the world. He’d taken off his jacket, and his periwinkle blue shirt stretched deliciously over the thick, bulging slabs of his chest and shoulders.
His dark eyes snapped to me. Instantly, he prowled onto the bed. Reaching me, he braced himself above me, bracketing me with his limbs. He stared down at me, his indecipherable gaze searching.
“What’s wrong?” he rumbled out, his tone grave.
I grasped his solid biceps. “Let’s run away. Just the two of us. Let’s run away from our families and their insane ambitions. They’re going to ruin us.”
A crease notched between the two perfect winged arcs of his brows.
“What’s this about, Clara?” he demanded with an edge of worry to his tone. He softened his question by grazing his lips over mine ever so softly.
I couldn’t blame him, I was worried, too.
“Will you swear to leave Alex for me?” I said. Asking the question, I felt gutted and flayed open, my insides exposed to him.
His gaze bored into my face. A long pause of silence stretched out between us, the strain a taut, breathing thing between us. My stomach roiled with anxiety.
“I can’t.” Regret bled in his eyes. “Not yet anyway. I’m working hard to get us where we need to be, but I’m not going to lie to you, it’s going to take time to get Sebastian ready. He entered this world at the age of twenty-five years old. You and I were born into it and look how much trouble we’re having carving our own path through this morass.”
“Ugh.” I twisted my head to the side. “That wasn’t what I needed to hear from you.”
“What did you need to hear from me, VQ?” he asked softly.
Gazing out the window, I answered, “I needed to hear you say, ‘It’s going to be me and you, Clara. Me and you in power, together. We’ll be a couple. A team. We will be stronger together than we are apart. And we will rule the Hagi clan as one, regardless of what your father says.’”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Your father? You spoke to your father.”
“And Grigore.”
“What did your father say?”
I shook my head. “He also didn’t say anything I wanted to hear. Not from him and not from you.”
“That’s because we’re both realists. He’s a boss. I’m an advisor. We live in the real world, dealing with real problems on an everyday basis,” he said.
“Grrr, why do you have to be so logical right now,” I snapped, my eyes swerving to give him a righteous glare. “Why can’t anyone coddle me?”
“Because you’re a strong woman, not a child. You might think you want to be coddled, but two minutes into babying you, and you’d demand I stop. Hell, if I kept it up for more than five minutes, you’d smack me.”
Shoving him away, I scrambled to my knees, crossed my arms over my chest, and hmphed. He was spot-on, but that didn’t mean I liked it, and I wasn’t about to admit it to him even though my heart melted at the idea of how well he already knew me.
“I get it,” he said with a soothing caress of my hair. “You want everything to come easy, but that’s not the mafie life. It’s complex on a good day and downright perilous on every other day.”
Pleading for leniency, he murmured, “Listen, baby, I’m not going to lie simply to make you feel better, but this is doable. I need time to convince Alex that Sebastian is ready to replace me. You already know about the recent pressure the Bratva is putting on us, but there’s more at play than I can reveal. It’s not my secret to spill, but I will say that it’s not just our lives on the line.”
“Star?”
“And my mother. Star will turn eighteen in a couple months. I can’t abandon her when I’m so close to being finished raising her. Once I’ve married her off, I’ll have the leeway to do what I want, but even then—”
Frustration crossed his face and he balled one hand into a fist.
