Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ilona
My breath catches.
He’s asking me to be his wife?
It takes me a moment to take it in. Marriage. To Osip Sidorov. The man kneeling before me with vulnerability written across his features like a confession, holding a ring that catches the light and throws it back in brilliant beams.
Tears begin to soak my face.
They come without warning, burning and relentless, spilling over my lashes and trailing down my cheeks in silent rivers.
I don’t even try to stop them. I couldn’t if I wanted to.
My entire body shakes with the force of emotions I’ve been holding back for so long— love and fear and desperate hope all crashing together.
I don’t say anything, and the silence stretches between us, thick and heavy with possibility.
My God, this is impossible.
But then, nothing about us has ever been normal.
My tears are flowing freely now, and my emotions overwhelm me like a dam bursting.
Everything I’ve been holding in all this time seems to pour out of me in the form of thick salty teardrops.
The fear of loving someone who could destroy me.
The desperate want that claws at my chest every time he looks at me.
The terrible, beautiful truth that I’d rather risk everything with him than have safety with anyone else.
I’ve always been a crier, and I need this. Need to release the pressure that’s been building in my chest since the moment I realized how deeply I care for this dangerous, complicated man who’s offering me his heart like it’s the most fragile thing in the world.
He stays perfectly still as I fall apart, his gray eyes never leaving my face. The ring trembles slightly in his extended hand— the only sign that my silence is killing him slowly. But he waits, patient as death, while I wrestle with decisions that will change everything.
Every logical thought in my head screams that I should run, should take my baby and disappear before he can hurt us both.
But my heart…
My treacherous, foolish heart knows something my brain refuses to accept.
This is a man who is desperate for redemption. Who’s lost everything and fought to get it back.
The man who just told me he loves me with every broken piece of his soul.
“I’m scared,” I whisper through my tears. “I’m so fucking scared, Osip.”
His face crumples slightly, pain flickering across his features. “I know, milaya . I know you are. I…” He pauses. “I’m scared too.”
I know these are words that don’t come easily to him.
“What if we can’t make this work? What if we destroy each other?”
The question hangs between us, hinting at a truth that terrifies me. Because we could destroy each other— we both have that power now. I could leave with his child and break him completely. He could decide I’m a liability and make me disappear like countless others probably have.
But he could also be my salvation. And I could be his.
“Then we destroy each other,” he says simply, and the honesty in his voice takes my breath away. “But we won’t.” He strokes my cheek. “We won’t. Because we will be family.”
More tears spill down my cheeks, but these feel different. Cleaner somehow. Like grief finally giving way to acceptance.
I think about the baby growing inside me— his baby, our baby— and the life we could build if we’re brave enough to try. Not the perfect fairy tale I dreamed about as a little girl, but something real and complicated and beautiful in its imperfections. Something worth fighting for.
Something worth risking everything for.
“Yes.”
There. It’s out. I said it.
It’s a simple word. A tiny little sound, really. And yet it means so much. It means… everything.
My logical brain may have doubts, but in that one word, my heart spoke the truth it’s been carrying for what feels like a lifetime.
I want him more than anything. I want us to build a life together from the wreckage of our separate tragedies.
I want him to be a father to my baby, to Slava, to whatever other children might come.
I want to wake up beside him every morning and fall asleep in his arms every night, even if it means accepting the darkness that comes with loving someone like him.
“Yes,” I repeat, stronger this time, watching as joy transforms his face into something radiant and beautiful. “Yes, I’ll be your wife. I’ll marry you, Osip Sidorov.”
The ring box hits the floor and bounces as he surges to his feet, his hands framing my face with such tenderness I start crying all over again. His thumbs stroke away my tears with infinite care, and when he looks at me, I see my entire future reflected in his stormy eyes.
“You won’t regret this,” he whispers fiercely, like he’s making a vow to whatever gods watch over broken people trying to build something beautiful and lasting. “I swear to you, Ilona, you are not going to regret this.”
Before I can respond, he moves closer. His presence fills my entire world, all masculine heat and controlled power and desperate love. When he smiles at me— really smiles, with nothing held back— my toes curl and my heart stops beating for a full second.
The next moment, his lips crash against mine.
The kiss is everything— desperate and tender, claiming and giving, weeks of pent-up emotion finally finding release.
His mouth moves against mine with a hunger that makes me dizzy, like he’s trying to pour his entire soul through the connection of our lips.
I taste salt from my tears, the faint sweetness of his breath, and underneath it all, something that’s purely him.
I return the kiss with everything I have, my hands fisting in his robe to pull him closer.
It’s long and slow and passionate, filled with everything I can’t put into words.
All the love I’ve been too afraid to admit, all the hope I’ve been too scared to acknowledge, all the desperate want that’s been clawing at my chest since the day he walked into my life.
When we finally break apart, both of us are breathing hard, nose to nose, like we’re sharing the same air. His hands are still cupping my face, his thumbs tracing patterns on my tear-damp cheeks.
“I love you,” I pant between kisses, the words spilling out at last. To hell with waiting till I’m ready. I’m ready now. “I love you, Osip Sidorov. I love you so much it terrifies me.”
“I love you too, Ilona.” His voice is rough with emotion, gravelly in a way that sends heat spiraling through my core. “More than I thought I was capable of loving anyone.”
He kisses me again, softer this time but no less devastating. When he pulls back, there’s mischief dancing in his gray eyes along with the love and hunger.
“How does Ilona Sidorova sound?” he smirks, and the question sends a thrill through me that I feel all the way to my toes.
“Perfect,” I breathe, and I mean it. Whatever else happens, however complicated our future becomes, this moment is perfect. This choice is right.
His smirk deepens into something darker, more possessive, and I see the exact moment tenderness transforms into something else entirely. His pupils dilate, and his hands slide from my face down to my waist, pulling me flush against him until every line of his body is pressed against mine.
“Mine,” he growls against my lips, and the word sends liquid fire racing through my veins. “My wife. My woman. Mine to protect and cherish and worship.”
The kiss that follows is pure claiming— hot and demanding and so intense I forget how to breathe.
His tongue sweeps into my mouth, tasting me, conquering me, making me whimper with need.
One of his hands tangles in my hair while the other grips my hip hard enough to leave marks, and I love it.
Love the evidence of his desperation, his need to possess me as completely as I want to possess him.
When he suddenly lifts me into his arms like I weigh nothing at all, I gasp against his mouth. My arms instinctively wind around his neck, fingers threading through the dark silk of his hair as he lays me back against the couch.
“What are you doing?” I ask stupidly, though I already know the answer. I can see it in the dark hunger burning in his eyes, feel it in the tension coiled through his powerful frame.
“I’m going to make love to my fiancée,” he says simply, his voice rough with promise. “I’m going to worship every inch of her beautiful body until she knows exactly how precious she is to me.”
The words send heat pooling between my thighs, my core clenching with anticipation. By the time he sinks onto the couch with me, I’m trembling with want, my body singing with need for his touch.
His hands immediately return to frame my face like he can’t bear not to be touching me. The golden light from the nearby lamp bathes everything in gold, making this moment feel dreamlike and surreal.
“You’re sure?” he asks quietly. “Being my wife…” His lips are close enough to brush mine. “It won’t be easy.”
Instead of answering with words, I pull him back down and kiss him again, pouring every ounce of my desire into the contact. My hands find the edges of his robe, tugging it down his shoulders with desperate fingers, needing to feel his skin against mine.
He breaks the kiss long enough to help me strip silk garment away, revealing the magnificent expanse of his chest. Muscle and scars and ink, all of it perfect and masculine and mine.
My palms flatten against his heated flesh, mapping the topography of his torso while he watches me with eyes gone dark as storm clouds.
“Beautiful,” I whisper, tracing the line of a scar that curves along his ribs. “You’re so beautiful, Osip.”
His laugh is rough, disbelieving. “Men aren’t beautiful, milaya .”
“You are.” I lean forward to press a kiss directly over his heart, feeling the rapid rhythm beneath my lips. “Every scar tells a story. Every line shows how strong you are, how much you’ve survived. You’re beautiful because you’re alive, because you’re here with me.”