Chapter 10 #2
Viktor simply turned toward her. She squeezed his hand. “I want at least a year.” The room went quiet, and she continued before anyone could interrupt. “I spent years moving around and never staying anywhere.” She looked at Viktor. “I don’t want to rush through this part.”
He listened without speaking. Her thumb moved across the back of his hand. “I want time with you.” His gaze never left hers. “I want us to enjoy being engaged. I want dinners and weekends and ordinary days.” A small smile. “I want a year.”
For several seconds Viktor stayed silent. Then he nodded. “Okay.”
She studied him. “Just okay?”
His hand tightened around hers. “If you want a year, we take a year.”
The answer came so easily that her chest tightened.
Julian looked disappointed. “A year is a long time.”
Avery smacked his arm. “Leave them alone.”
“I’m just saying.”
“No one cares.”
Josephine laughed. Viktor’s attention never left her face, the look in his eyes steady, certain, patient — exactly the same way it had always been.
Avery smiled from across the room. “You two are ridiculous.”
“Completely,” Julian agreed. Neither Josephine nor Viktor disagreed.
The conversation continued another hour before the afternoon wound down. Eventually they stood to leave — Avery hugging Josephine again, Julian shaking Viktor’s hand one final time. Outside, Viktor automatically reached for her hand, and she let him, fingers intertwining immediately.
Walking toward the car, she glanced down at the ring once more, sunlight flashing across the stone. He noticed, again. “You did it.”
She smiled. “Did what?”
“You looked at it.”
She laughed softly. “I probably always will.”
“I hope so.”
The answer made her heart squeeze. She looked up at him; he looked back. Neither said anything for several seconds. They didn’t need to. The ring sat comfortably on her finger. His hand stayed wrapped around hers. And both of them knew exactly where they were headed.
* * *
A couple of months later…
Viktor stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows with a glass of water in his hand, watching Josephine direct two movers carrying the last of her boxes into the penthouse.
“Not that one,” she said, pointing toward the hallway. “The studio room.”
The movers immediately changed direction. Viktor’s mouth curved — she’d been there less than three hours and was already reorganizing his home. The realization pleased him more than it should have.
She disappeared down the hallway behind the movers, and a moment later he heard her voice again, followed by laughter and the sound of a box being set down.
Home.
The word settled heavily in his chest. Not the penthouse.
Her. For months he’d watched her spend more and more time there — a weekend becoming several weekends, overnight bags turning into drawers, drawers turning into entire closets.
Now her house was under contract, the moving trucks were leaving, and Josephine was officially moving in.
A movement near the hallway caught his attention. She reappeared carrying a framed ballet photograph. “You are staring again.”
He made no effort to deny it. “I am.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve been doing it all day.”
“I know.”
“You’re being weird.”
“I’m happy.”
That stopped her. She blinked, then laughed. “Well, that explains it.”
He crossed the room and took the frame from her hands. “You should be careful.”
“It’s a picture frame, not a bomb.”
“It doesn’t matter.” That earned another eye roll. He carried the frame to the room she’d already claimed as her studio space.
When he returned, Josephine stood beside a stack of boxes, hands on her hips. The sight made something tighten inside him. There were boxes everywhere — books, dance equipment, photographs, clothes, tiny pieces of her life scattered throughout the penthouse. Exactly where they belonged.
She noticed him looking around. “What?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.” She laughed. “I knew it.”
He moved closer, his hands settling on her waist automatically, the contact familiar now. Natural. She relaxed against him immediately, and that still affected him — the way she fit, the way she trusted him, the way she never pulled away anymore.
His gaze moved across the room again. “You really sold the house.”
A smile. “I did.”
“No backing out.”
“No backing out.”
His hands tightened slightly, the answer satisfying something primitive inside him. She noticed immediately. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“That possessive look.”
He smiled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You absolutely do.” Her hands settled against his chest, the engagement ring catching the light between them. The sight distracted him for a moment — not because it was expensive, but because she wore it. Because she’d chosen him. Because she was moving into his home.
Josephine followed his gaze, a softer expression crossing her face. “I know.”
“What?”
“What you’re thinking.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Do you?”
She nodded, the smile remaining. “You’re happy.”
The simple accuracy of it made him laugh. “I am.”
She leaned up and kissed him briefly — only a second, and still not enough. Nothing with her ever felt like enough. When she stepped back, he immediately missed the contact.
She pointed toward the kitchen. “I’m starving.”
“You ate lunch.”
“Hours ago.”
“You had a snack.”
“Also hours ago.”
He shook his head. “You are impossible.”
“You’re marrying me anyway.”
That earned a grin. “Unfortunately.”
She gasped dramatically. “Rude.”
He caught her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen. She came willingly — always willingly now, a fact that continued to amaze him. Several unpacked boxes sat near the island, waiting to be sorted later. She climbed onto a barstool and watched him open the refrigerator.
“What are we making?”
“You wanted dinner.”
“I still do.”
“Then help.”
She groaned. “I knew there was a catch.” He handed her vegetables, and she accepted them muttering under her breath.
A few minutes later they worked side by side — her chopping, him handling anything that required actual cooking.
She insisted she was helping. He remained unconvinced.
At one point she stole a piece of food off the cutting board.
At another she deliberately bumped his shoulder.
The kitchen filled with conversation, laughter, occasional arguments about technique.
The entire process took twice as long as necessary.
Viktor didn’t care. Josephine stood beside him wearing one of his shirts, her engagement ring flashing every time she moved. Boxes filled the penthouse. Her belongings occupied nearly every room. Dinner simmered on the stove.
For the first time in years, the penthouse felt lived in. Not occupied. Lived in — the way a place feels different the moment it stops being a backdrop for one person’s routine and starts holding two.
She reached for another ingredient, her shoulder brushing his again — accidental, this time. She didn’t move away. Neither did he. A small smile crossed her face.
“What?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.” He knew better. He let it go anyway.
She looked around the kitchen, then the living room, then the hallway filled with her belongings. The smile returned, bigger this time. “You know,” she said quietly, “it already feels different.”
He followed her gaze — the boxes, the photographs, the books. Her life. Their life. His chest tightened. “Good.”
She looked back at him, the warmth in her expression nearly undoing him.
He reached for her immediately, one arm settling around her waist, the other brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb lingering at her jaw the way it always did when he wanted her full attention.
For a moment neither spoke. The food kept cooking.
The city lights glowed beyond the windows.
The penthouse buzzed softly with the ordinary sounds of home, and underneath all of it, the quiet charge that never fully went away between them — the same pull that had been there since the first dinner at Avery’s table, still humming low and constant even now, even in a kitchen full of unpacked boxes.
And Viktor found himself wanting this more than anything he’d ever built. Not the business. Not the properties. Not the success. This. Josephine in his kitchen. Josephine in his home. Josephine in his life, close enough to touch, choosing to stay close enough to touch.
Exactly where she belonged.