Chapter Twenty-Three
SCOTTIE
By the time I get back to the penthouse, my head is pounding and the call from my mom is replaying in my head over and over again.
I’m wiping water off my jacket from the wet October that Seattle brought in before I walk into The Commons when a long, sleek black limousine glides to a stop at the curb.
At first, I didn't think anything of it. Rich people are always dropping in and out of this building.
But then the back window lowers.
And I see her.
A woman who looks like an older version of Katerina but with grey hair and a steeling look in her eyes.
Impeccably dressed. Perfect posture. Eyes sharp enough to cut through steel.
“Mr. Easton,” she says in flawless English with a hint of old-world Russian polish. “A word.”
It’s not a question; it’s a summons.
Against every instinct screaming this is a bad idea, I step toward the car.
The back door clicks open, an invitation that I’m too curious to pass up, though in reality it could be a trap and they could kidnap me and dump my body in Puget Sound.
If this is my only chance to make her grandmother see that Katerina and I should get to be together… I’ll take the risk.
I slide into the leather seat beside her. There’s an older bodyguard in the front row, another outside.
This is a power move. I know it, and she knows it, but what I want to know is, what does she want?
She studies me as if I’m a specimen on a slide.
“You know who I am and why I am here?” she asks.
“I have an idea, yes. This is about my wife,” I say back.
Her eyebrow lifts when I call Kat my wife. Maybe she wasn’t expecting me to make the claim, but here I am.
“Katerina is important to our family,” she begins. “Very important. Her future, and the alliances she forms through marriage, reflect on generations of legacy.”
I keep my jaw tight. “With all due respect, ma’am, she’s not an alliance. She’s a person.”
She tilts her head. “A person who belongs to a powerful family with expectations.”
My pulse kicks harder when she uses the word ‘expectations’ as if Katerina has any responsibility to someone else's expectations other than her own.
“Say what you came here to say,” I tell her.
Her lips curve as if likes a little fight, which is just as well since I have no plans to kiss her ass.
“I’m here to make you an offer.”
An offer? If it comes with her getting lost and leaving Katerina alone for good, I’m open to it.
“What kind of offer?” I ask.
“The kind of offer that sets you and your family up for life. I’m willing to offer you five times the value of your current five-year NHL contract,” she says. “Upfront. Wired to your account today. In exchange, you will file for divorce and walk away quietly.”
My breath leaves me in a harsh exhale.
My five-year contract guarantees seven million. Five times that paid in full is insane. Insane enough to buy a house for each of my sisters, pay off my parents’ debts, and hire every specialist my dad could ever need for the rest of his life.
She watches me absorb it, waiting for greed, or hesitation… or fear.
But all I feel is anger.
“You could offer me twenty times and I’d still say no. I’m not divorcing your granddaughter. Not for anything. You came to the wrong guy. If she decides to walk away someday, that’s her choice, not yours. But I won’t leave her. Not without a fight.”
Her brows lift just slightly, but it’s the first sign I’ve actually surprised her.
“That is… a very inconvenient answer. If I offer her the same and she decides to divorce you first, I won’t offer this again. Think long and hard about this and what your family could do with that money,” she says, attempting to try again.
“I make enough to take care of my family. I’m in love with Katerina, and I won’t be the one to end our marriage. Tell her father. Tell Maxim. Tell whoever needs to hear it. I said “I do” until death do us part, and I meant it.”
I reach for the doorknob.
Her voice stops me.
“Mr. Easton.”
I turn back.
There’s something new in her expression, something thoughtful, almost unreadable.
“For your sake,” she says softly, “I hope Katerina feels the same.”
I nod once and step out of the limousine. The door shuts behind me without a sound, the car pulling away as if it had never been there.
And I stand in the lobby, heart hammering, knowing one thing with absolute certainty:
I’d burn the world down before I take a single step away from Katerina.
Now I just have to walk upstairs, not scare her with any of that… and let her think tonight is normal. The last thing she needs on top of everything else is knowing that her own grandmother tried to bribe me. First Maxim and the necklace, now this.
I’m halfway through dropping my keys in the bowl when something stops me mid-motion.
Her voice is coming from the kitchen. It’s soft and almost nervous.
“Scottie?”
I follow the sound, and then I nearly swallow my tongue.
The table is set with actual place settings, candles she definitely found in some forgotten drawer that Juliet must have left behind, a bottle of wine breathing like she knows what she’s doing.
And in the middle of all of it is Katerina…
hair pinned up, cheeks pink, wearing an apron that looks like it’s been through battle, with what looks like spaghetti sauce on her cheek.
“You cooked?” I ask, stunned.
She swallows. “Your mother walked me through it on video chat.”
My eyebrow arch, I’m intrigued. “My mom helped you?”
“I wanted to do something romantic,” she says softly, twisting her fingers together. “For you. For once.”
I step forward slowly, like she’s something wild I’ll spook if I move too fast.
“Kat… this is…” I shake my head. “Incredible.”
She motions awkwardly toward the food. “The noodles are… slightly firm.”
“They’re perfect,” I say before even tasting them… because she made them for me.
We sit, knees brushing under the table, and it feels like I’ve walked straight into the version of life I wasn’t expecting us ever to have when Luka told me that the bet was real and that I would be marrying his sister.
She hands me a piece of French bread. The bottom is black.
“Don’t eat that part,” she warns.
I grin and take a massive bite anyway.
Her eyes widen. “Scottie—”
“It’s great.”
“It’s burned,” she says, her voice shaking as if she wants to tear up over the scorched bread, but I won’t let her.
“Just on the underside.” I chew, swallow, lean in. “Besides… watching you get sauce on your nose while you pour wine? Worth eating charred bread for the rest of my life.”
Her face flushes hard. I like seeing this side of her. She’s trying, and that’s more than I can ask for.
We talk as we eat. She tells me everything her grandmother said. The warnings. The questions. The fact that the woman livestreamed opening night.
“She watched it?” I ask, almost dropping my fork.
“Yes,” Katerina says quietly. “She said it herself.”
Then I tell her about my dad.
About the trial and the rejection.
Her breath catches. “Scottie… I’m so sorry.”
I shrug even though it feels like something inside me is collapsing. “It is what it is. Mom said the waiting list is… years. Maybe longer. And the longer they push him back, the less likely nerves are still alive enough to—” My voice cracks. I look down at my plate. “There’s nothing I can do.”
She reaches for my hand under the table without hesitation. Her fingers thread through mine like she’s been doing it forever.
“There might be something,” she says softly. “My grandmother knows the neurologist running the program. She said she’d… consider reaching out.”
I stare at her. Hope can sometimes be a dangerous thing, but right now, it’s the only thing I have.
“You’d ask that of her?”
She nods. “For you? Yes. It’s not for sure… she only said that she would consider it. He owes her a favor, but pretty much everyone does.”
I can’t speak for a second.
So I squeeze her hand instead. “Thank you for asking. Even if nothing comes of it.”
After dinner, we clean up side by side, like we’ve been doing for the last month or so.
She hands me a plate; I dry it.
I bump her hip; she bumps mine back.
I thank her for calling my mom and cooking for me. I already know it meant a lot to my mother that Katerina reached out to her for help.
“I wanted to do something romantic for you since you’re always doing something romantic for me. You know… just in case we don’t get many more days.” She glances down and away as if the possibility of that is hard for her to swallow.
I tug gently at the apron tie around her waist.
“Katerina?”
“Mm?” she says, turning back toward me.
I lift her chin.
“There is no ‘just in case.’ We’re going to figure this out. For better or worse… remember?”
Her eyes soften. “I remember.”
When I kiss her, she makes this soft little noise, half-surprised, half-hungry… an instant response to me, and it’s over for me. Completely.
I pick her up and set her on the kitchen island. Her legs wrap around my waist, her hands sliding under my shirt. I pull my t-shirt up over my head and discard it on the kitchen floor. Then I reach for the hem of hers and do the same.
We strip each other slowly. Clothes falling to the floor like they don’t matter anymore.
I kiss down her neck, across her shoulder, down her stomach. She moans my name so quietly I nearly groan.
My mouth finds her bare nipple, and I suck down on her as her fingers thread through my hair, pulling me tighter to her.
“Take me to bed, Scottie,” she whispers, breath trembling against my ear.
No words have ever sounded as good as those coming from her.
I lift her off the counter, carrying her toward the bedroom, her forehead pressed to mine, her hands in my hair.
I kick the door shut behind us and lay her naked on my bed. This can’t be the last time I touch her. We’re going to figure this out together. I know how to tolerate pain, but losing her isn’t something I’ll survive.
I settle over her, bracing myself on my forearms, and just look at her for a moment. Her cheeks are flushed, lips parted, chest rising and falling rapidly. Beautiful doesn’t cover it.
“Are you still sore from last time?” I ask, trailing my hand down her side, needing to know how to move forward with her tonight.
“A little,” she admits, “but I want you, anyway.”
God, this woman.
I kiss her slowly, deeply, while my hand maps the curve of her waist, her hip, her thigh. When I slide my hand between her legs, she’s already wet for me, and I groan against her mouth.
“Always so ready for me,” I murmur, circling her clit with gentle pressure.
She gasps, hips rolling into my touch.
I work her carefully, watching her face for any sign of discomfort. But there’s only pleasure—her eyes fluttering closed, breath catching, little sounds escaping her throat that drive me insane.
When I slide one finger inside her, she’s tight and hot and already clenching around me. I add a second finger slowly, crooking them to find that spot that makes her moan my name.
“Scottie—please—”
She’s not ready yet. Need her wetter. Need her completely gone.
I increase the pressure on her clit while working my fingers deeper, feeling her body respond. Her thighs start trembling, her breathing turns ragged… Perfect.
I withdraw my hand before she gets there, and I reach for the nightstand drawer, fumbling for a condom. My hands are rolling it on in record time.
When I position myself at her entrance, I pause. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
She nods, pulling me down for a kiss.
I press forward slowly, feeling her stretch around me. She winces slightly, and I still.
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” she breathes. “Keep going.”
So tight. So perfect. So mine.
I sink in deeper, inch by inch, until I’m fully seated inside her. We both exhale shakily.
Then I start to move—slow, careful thrusts that gradually build in intensity as her body adjusts. Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me deeper, and I’m lost.
This is everything. She’s everything.
“I love you,” I breathe against her mouth as the pressure builds. “God, Katerina, I love you—”
She tightens around me, gasping my name, and that’s all it takes. We both come together, my orgasm crashes through me, and I bury my face in her neck, groaning her name as I shudder through it. Her body pulsates over me with her release, milking every drop.
For a long moment, we just breathe together, hearts racing in sync.
Whatever happens tomorrow, we have this. We have each other.