Chapter 29
MILA
Ipush my chair back and rush across the ballroom before anyone can stop me, weaving between tables and rising guests until I reach the side door.
The hallway is dark and quiet with no trace of Roman anywhere, but after that I can't sit there doing nothing.
I scurry toward the exit. He was just here. He can't have gone far.
The hallway ends at a side exit propped open with a rubber wedge. Beyond it, the sun has set over the courtyard where the paths are lit by small solar lights, wending their way toward a copse of trees where the glow from the ballroom windows behind me show the silhouette of the man I'm looking for.
Roman sits on a stone bench with his jacket unbuttoned, elbows on his knees, head down.
The courtyard is walled on three sides with an open archway at the far end that leads to the parking lot, and I can hear the distant racket as guests start leaving early.
He doesn't look up as I walk toward him, stopping a few feet away.
His temper's unpredictable and tonight's been anything but calm, so I approach carefully, watching for the tension in his shoulders that tells me whether he's thinking or seething. Right now, it's hard to tell.
"Can I sit?" I ask him. I've felt a wide range of emotions today and my heart hasn’t landed fully on which one I should be feeling, but I know, because I can see it in his posture now, exactly what he's feeling.
He doesn't lift his head. "If you can forgive me for destroying your family in front of hundreds of people, you can sit."
"You didn't destroy my family," I tell him softly. "You exposed the woman who destroyed it years ago." I lower myself onto the bench beside him, leaving a few inches between us, and fold my hands in my lap.
Tonight wasn't at all what I thought would happen, and I think I've had Roman Kuzin wrong since the beginning. I had no idea any of that shit about Vera was true and I don’t know how Roman found it out.
It certainly explains a lot of things I've felt over the years, though it leaves questions about the nature of my father’s death.
And in good time, I hope all of my questions will be answered.
But there’s one only Roman can give me a response to, which my heart needs to hear from his mouth.
"Why didn't you choose anyone?" I ask quietly, because to ask him directly if I'm the woman he loves seems too forward, even for me.
"Because I didn't want to."
"Why would you give that up? The alliance, the inheritance—all of it was yours for the taking.
" When I told him to have it all, I meant it, because I love him.
It isn't what I want, anyway. I never wanted my father's empire.
I wanted my father to love me, which I now know he did.
Everything that happened was because Vera manipulated him, not because he was a cruel man.
"I know what it was." The heels of his palms push into the stone bench as he stares out across the dark courtyard. I've never seen him so dejected.
"Then why walk away from it?"
He leans back against the bench, tipping his head toward the sky like he's thinking, and he's quiet for a long time.
The noise in the background continues, but the quiet between us is calming to my heart, which feels like it may run away with me any second.
I knew exactly what to expect before this gala started, and now I know nothing. Everything I thought I knew was a lie.
"I did it for you, Mila. Vera murdered three husbands and married your father with the same plan. She was going to take everything he left you. The only way to stop her was to do it publicly, in a room full of witnesses, with the police ten feet away."
"I don't understand," I say as tears well up in my eyes. "You wanted the empire. You wanted to run my father's organization and—"
"No," he growls, and it startles me. It's so loud, I swear people filing out of the main entrance beyond those stone walls can hear him. Then he turns and cradles my cheek softly. "I did not ever want those things, do you understand me?"
I nod, biting my lower lip as I try to understand him, but my own thoughts are racing, willing me to tell him about the baby. He's all but confessed to me that he loves me, and I need him to know what he's saying before he says it.
I can sense it coming, like the trap door in a horror film that you scream at the character warning them not to open. I know it, and the moment is hurtling toward an inevitable breaking point I can't stop from coming.
"Absorbing your father's businesses would benefit me, yes. And money is nice, but it's just a tool. Why have any of that if I don’t have someone to share it with?" His eyes sparkle with his own emotion while tears stream down my cheeks.
"But you don’t understand."
"I don’t need to understand anything except that Vera was a horrible person who hurt you badly, so badly she almost got you killed by me—another horrible person who—"
"No, stop," I whine, swiping at my eyes. "You're not horrible. I don't believe that."
"I would've killed you."
"You saved me," I tell him, resting my hand on his cheek. "You saved me, Roman. Just like you did Sorin, and Sara… And God help me, I love you for it." I can't stop the tears now. They're coming too fast and too strongly to stop them.
His thumb catches a tear on my cheek. His face softens, losing the hard edges until he leans in and kisses me softly. His forehead rests against mine as his hand curls around the back of my neck, pinning my head there so I can't move.
"God, woman…" he grumbles. I can tell he's wrestling with the words, fighting his own ego or pride, or inability to communicate. I hold my tongue because I need to hear him say them himself, but I also feel terrified of what he will think when I tell him my truth.
When a few minutes go by and he doesn't speak, but he hasn't said anything either, I clear my throat and start to pull away, but he doesn't let me get far.
"Rome, I need you to know something…"
His eyes rise to meet mine, and every ounce of the inner war he's fighting is present on his face. His hand slides down my arm to take my fingers between his, and then he sucks in a deep breath and sighs hard.
"I know you may be upset with me for keeping this from you, but I had my reasons.
" My lip is quivering, my palms sweaty as I say, "I'm…
I, uh… I'm pregnant." I spit the words out and terror grips me, but he doesn't move a muscle, so to fill the awkward silence, I start babbling on like an idiot, hoping he doesn't erupt how I fear he may.
"I know what you're thinking, and I’m sorry I didn't tell you as soon as I knew. You wanted to have Dr. Levin check me out, and I was scared, and Sorin told me you'd be furious if I didn’t say something, so I promised her I’d tell you, but Rome, I'm scared and I never had sex before I met you and—"
His lips claim mine in a searing kiss that swallows all of my fear and trepidation.
And when I think I may pass out because I can't breathe, he kisses me harder, pulling me onto his lap until I'm sitting with my legs draped to the side and my arms wrapped around his strong, broad shoulders while tears streak down my cheeks hotter than ever.
"I love you, Mila, and I have no idea how to tell you that without sounding weak or foolish, but I do. I want you in my life, in my bed, on my arm."
"I think you're doing a pretty good job," I say, laughing as I wipe tears from my cheeks.
"I don't care at this point. I need you, do you understand?
It was never the organization I wanted. It was always you.
From the moment I saw what Vera was capable of, I saw you differently and I wanted you.
" He kisses me again, and again, peppering my face with his affection and drinking in my tears between words.
"And I realize how much older I am than you and what people may say, but I don't care about that either. "
I'm overjoyed, unable to catch my breath as I listen to him pouring out his heart for me. They're the same concerns I've had from the beginning, but they don't matter to me one bit now that I know he loves me.
"Roman, stop…" I press a finger to his lips to hush him and to halt the assault of kissing. He stops but his hands still grip my hips hard. "Did you hear me say I'm having your baby? That you'll be a father?"
He smiles and then laughs, and it's an explosive, booming laugh that infects me so I'm laughing with him. "Oh, Mila, you've made me the happiest man alive. Let's have a hundred babies."
The idea of even one more pregnancy right now sounds like torture. My stomach pinches a little and I shake my head. "One thing at a time, alright?"
He kisses me again, and this time it's a slow, lingering kiss that relaxes me into his grip.
I never thought this would be the outcome from tonight's event, but then I never knew who Vera was either, or how badly I'd been deceived.
I accept, however, that things were never as they appeared, and that makes me happier than I've been in a very long time.
"Here," he says, sitting back. I balance on his knees carefully as his hands pull back from my hips, and he tugs the ring off his right hand and holds it out to me.
It's an odd gesture I don't fully understand.
It's not an engagement ring, though I've turned down his proposal twice, anyway. "Have this."
"Rome, this is your ring. You're known for wearing it." I try protesting, but he closes my hand around it and shakes his head firmly.
"No, Mila, this is my promise to you… We can hire leaders if you don't want to lead, or we can sign the entire organization over to your father's most trusted men if you don't want it, but I'm not taking it from you. I want you, and nothing else…" He smiles. "You and this baby, I mean."
I smile at him, knowing what he's getting at without saying it out loud. "So, is this a proposal again?" I'm grinning, finally where I want to be after all this time.
"Not exactly. It's a promise I should've made when you offered to give it all to me if I married one of those horrible girls." He sounds totally disgusted by the idea of marrying one of my stepsisters, and it makes me chuckle.
"They were awful, right?"
"Terrible. Why didn't you warn me?" he asks, chuckling. Then he draws a hand down over his face as I sigh and look down at my father's ring.
"Ask me again," I tell him, staring at the signet that seemed to pull us together like the red thread of destiny.
"What?" he says, looking confused.
"Ask for me again," I repeat, looking him directly in the eye, and I watch as it dawns on him what I'm saying.
I know how hard emotions are for him, and I'm not letting him off the hook easily.
I want this moment to be something we remember our entire lives, not an arrangement we make to put order into our lives from chaos.
He smiles, and then the smile fades into a serious expression. When Roman speaks, everyone listens, and now I know why. He's an incredible man with a heart of gold, and he puts everyone ahead of himself at all times.
"Mila Radin, you are the most infuriating and contemptuous woman I've ever met, and it would give me the greatest pleasure of my life if you'd get off my lap so I can get down on one knee to propose to you. But since you’re stubborn as hell and you like conflict—" I press a finger to his lips and shush him.
"Marry me," I whisper, and he bites my finger, then sucks it to remove the sting.
"As you wish," he says, pulling me back to his lips for another kiss.
My heart is full and my life will never be the same. And I owe it all to this man.