Chapter Nineteen
SCOTTIE
I wake up with the feeling of her.
Warm, soft, tucked against me like she’s always belonged there.
For a second, I don’t remember how I got here. Just the weight of her thigh thrown over mine, the tickle of her hair under my chin, the slow rise and fall of her breathing. My arm is around her waist, my hand spread over her back as if it’s been guarding her all night.
Which, knowing me, it probably has.
The room is dim, Seattle trying to remember what sunlight is through gray clouds. My body aches in that good, familiar way from last night’s game and the late flight, but this—this right here—makes all of it worth it.
Katerina in my bed.
Katerina in my arms.
Katerina, who somehow slept right through me getting in at two-thirty in the morning, sliding beneath the covers and gathering her close because I needed the feel of her to knock my brain off the loss.
She makes a soft sound and burrows in closer, nose bumping my throat.
Yeah. I could stay like this forever.
I press my lips to the top of her head and just breathe for a minute.
She shifts again, lashes fluttering against my chest. Something like relief flickers across her face before she shutters it, sitting up slowly and dragging the sheet with her. My arm falls away and immediately misses her.
“How was the game?” she asks, voice scratchy with sleep.
“We lost,” I tell her, though it was in the text. “But it’s okay. We’ll get them next time.”
Her mouth curves as if to smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “You always say that.”
“I always mean it.”
She swings her legs over the side of the bed, and that’s when I see it.
The velvet box on my dresser.
Small. Black. Expensive-looking.
Not mine.
My brain clicks from sleep-fogged to sharp in a heartbeat.
I push up on an elbow. “What’s that?”
She freezes midway to standing, follows my gaze, and goes very, very still.
“That,” she says finally, voice flat, “is a problem.”
Ice slides down my spine. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and sit up fully.
“Kat,” I say quietly. “Talk to me. I could feel something was wrong last night, but I didn’t want to push.”
She stays there for a beat, shoulders tight, breathing shallow, then stands and crosses the room. Fingers trembling just enough that I notice, she picks up the box and turns, holding it between us like evidence.
“He came last night,” she says.
“Who did?”
Her eyes meet mine, stormy and resigned all at once.
“Maxim.”
The name hits me like a punch. My jaw clenches. The fiancé her father picked. The walking arranged-marriage contract who’d be more than happy to chain her to a life she doesn’t want.
I stand up too. “He was here? In Seattle?”
“At the theater,” she says. That alone tells me how badly it rattled her; she doesn’t call it “the hall” or “the stage” like usual. Just… the theater. “He was at my opening. My dressing room after the performance.”
My hands curl into fists thinking of him being that close to her. “Did he touch you?”
Her eyes flash, offended and almost amused through the tightness. “Not like that. He knows better. But he brought… these.” She jerks her chin toward the box. “And roses.”
I frown. “You hate roses.”
“Exactly.” Her mouth twists. “They remind me of my mother’s funeral. But that’s just the point. Our families have run in the same circles for years, and yet he doesn’t know the first thing about me.”
A muscle jumps along my jaw. “What did he say he wanted?”
“The same thing my father wants.” She sounds tired now.
Worn. “Our families united. A wife on his arm who knows which fork to use at which course and won’t embarrass him in front of politicians and dignitaries.
A mother for his future children who knows how to stand still and smile and not say very much. ”
My chest tightens at the thought of her having to live that life.
Her thumb runs along the lid, then flicks it open.
Inside is a necklace that doesn’t belong in my bedroom—huge diamond halo, drop sapphire in the middle, the kind of thing you’d see in a museum or on a red carpet, not next to my drawer of Hawkeyes t-shirts.
“Sapphire alone is worth about half a million,” she says quietly. “Maxim made sure to point that out. ‘A taste of the life I can offer you, Katerina.’” Her accent thickens when she mimics him. It makes my skin crawl. “Like I’m a stray dog he’s trying to lure with meat.”
I want to break something. Preferably Maxim’s face.
“Please tell me you didn’t keep the roses,” I say.
Her mouth does that little almost-smile. “I dropped them in the trash on my way out. I kept this so I could mail it back later. The last thing I need is my father accusing me of theft.”
She shuts the lid with a soft snap, sets the box back on the dresser like she can’t stand to hold it, and wraps her arms around herself.
I close the distance between us in two strides.
“And the worst part isn’t the necklace,” she says before I can touch her. “It’s what he said as he was leaving.”
My stomach sinks. “What did he say?”
She swallows. It looks like it hurts. “He said that my grandmother is coming.”
The room tilts.
Your grandmother.
The matriarch. The one whose blessing we actually need. The one Luka said could make or break this whole plan, but I didn't realize that she would be making a stopover. I assumed we’d get the blessing from afar. Keeping a polite distance between us.
“When?” I ask.
“Tomorrow.” She stares past me, unfocused. “She’s probably already on her way. He said he came ahead to ‘make this easier’ on me.” Her lips flatten. “Which is laughable.”
I reach for her, hands landing on her upper arms. She’s colder than she should be.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. That’s… soon. But we knew this was coming eventually, right? This is what we planned for.”
“We planned for paperwork.” She looks up at me, and there’s something raw and scared in her eyes I don’t think I’ve seen before. “We planned for her to see that I was married and give a blessing. We did not plan for her to come and interrogate.”
“Luka said—”
“Luka hasn’t seen her in years,” she cuts in, not unkindly. “I grew up under her. You don’t understand, Scottie. She will see right through me. Through us.”
I want to argue. Want to tell her we’ll be fine, we’ve got photos and documents and a lease and a very real marriage certificate. I want to joke that your grandmother can’t be worse than my first NHL coach.
But she’s shaking a little.
And this is Katerina. She doesn’t shake.
So instead, I slide a hand up to cup the back of her neck, thumb brushing her jaw, trying to ground her.
“Hey,” I say softly. “We’ve done everything right. We’re living together. We have wedding photos and a video. You went to Montana to meet my parents. And we’re not exactly faking the physical chemistry either.” Understatement of the century. “We’re fine.”
Her eyes search mine like she wants to believe me but can’t quite get there.
“She’ll know,” she whispers. “She always knows. She’ll look at me and see that I’m… untouched. She’ll know I’m not… yours.”
The words drop between us with the weight of a grenade.
I go still.
“Kat,” I say, a little hoarse. “What are you saying?”
She draws in a breath, shoulders squaring as if trying to make sure I understand the gravity of what she’s about to say.
“I’m saying,” she whispers, “that I need you to take my virginity.”
For a second, I’m pretty sure my heart stops.
My hands tighten reflexively on her arms. “You—what?”
Her chin lifts, but I can see the tremor in it. “If she suspects, she’ll ask questions. She always does. She’ll know I’m still… innocent.” Her cheeks flush at the word. “She will interrogate me in ways I cannot lie through. She was trained for this. She knows when someone is lying… not just me.”
She swallows, eyes burning.
“If there is even the smallest crack in this story, she will find it. And she will tell my father. And then this is over.”
Every protective instinct I have roars to life.
“Kat—”
“I can’t go back,” she says, voice breaking. “I won’t.” Her fists curl in my t-shirt. “You said you wouldn’t let them take me. You promised. But if she finds out that we’ve never…” she searches for the word, “…consummated our marriage, then—”
“Hey.” I catch her face between my hands. “Breathe.”
Her chest is heaving, eyes shiny.
I’ve seen her calm on a tarmac with a gun metaphorically pointed at her life.
This is worse.
She drags in a shaky breath. Then another.
The words rush out again, like she can’t stop them.
“It makes sense. It’s logical. We’re married.
We—we already—” Color rushes into her cheeks, and I know she’s thinking about the alley behind Jake’s and the last few weeks we’ve spent exploring each other at night when we both crash in one of the other’s beds.
“You’re not some stranger. I trust you. I want—” Her voice cracks, but she pushes on. “I want it to be you.”
That sentence hits harder than anything else she’s said.
I close my eyes for half a second, because all the blood in my body decides to make a beeline for two places at once—my heart and absolutely everywhere else.
Of course, I’ve thought about it.
Of course, I’ve wanted it.
I’ve pictured being with her in fantasies that would make her blush.
I replayed that night at the roadhouse in my head so many times I could choreograph a film reel of exactly when her breath hitched and how she said my name when she came apart for me.
How she dropped to her knees for me the night we celebrated her getting into PNB.
How I laid her out and devoured her after. And every night after that.
But this?
Her standing in my bedroom in the gray morning light, asking me to take the one thing she can’t get back as a… strategy? As proof?
That cracks something in my chest.
I drop my hands to her shoulders and force my voice to stay gentle.
“Kat,” I say. “This isn’t a good idea.”
She goes very still.
“What?” she whispers.