Chapter 2 Lachlan
LACHLAN
For the first six months, we’d been inseparable during phone conversations, getting to know each other, flirting.
Then we started dating. Now, after a year and a half strong, I saw her in a new light.
Still. Silent. Glowing like light had caught her at the right angle.
Natasha stood in the center of the gallery I built for her. She had to know I saw her.
She’d never once been second in my mind, even when the world kept yanking me five different directions. Practice. Photo shoots. Interviews.
Now she stood in the middle of it all.
I didn’t want her to leave. Didn’t want to comply with my fifty-million-dollar Dodger contract or other contracts I’d signed. Didn’t want to do anything without including her.
Natasha’s eyes shined, happy tears collecting in her gorgeous hazel orbs. “You did this, for me?”
I stepped closer, resting my hand on her waist. “Yeah. Had to.”
Natasha didn’t need grand gestures. She wasn’t the type to be impressed by this hotel penthouse or the Nike boxes stacked in my closet.
Or even the two million I gave to Whispers of Hope, her foundation.
She’d appreciated it. But she’d appreciate it when I visited the kids stuck in the oncology ward.
She’d grown up surrounded by power, diamonds, a private jet.
Cancer. Still, I wanted to give her something only I could give her.
Time. Thought. Devotion. And maybe the food that awaited us near the French doors. The cold prevented an outdoor meal, so dinner was served on a white-linen table, sheltered by silver domes. For the next hour, candlelight flickered across her gorgeous face as we chatted and ate.
In no time, Natasha dropped her linen napkin on the table, drawn back to the canvases.
“You framed a part of me I thought nobody even noticed.” She glanced at an image that had taken some calling around to her old college professors to grab.
“Allow me to become your personal curator for life.” I climbed out of my chair and planted my kneeling body between her legs.
Her laugh was low, breathy, the kind that hit right in the center of my chest and stayed there.
I kissed her cheek. Soft. Intentional. Then her temple. Slower. Reverent. My lips lingered just inches from hers, so close I tasted the hesitation and heat hanging between us.
Not asking. Not assuming. Just patient.
Natasha leaned in. Her forehead rested against mine. Her voice a breath. “You’re making this hard. It’s easier to kiss you out and about while wearing hoodies.”
I smiled. “That’s the idea.”
Her fingers curled into my shirt. Mine slid around her waist, pulling her against me like I needed her closer to breathe right. Her lips brushed mine once—just the barest graze. I swear my entire body paused.
She kissed me.
And nothing was shy about it.
It was slow, deep. Hot, achy, hungry in a way that told me she wasn’t just kissing me now.
She was kissing all the times we hadn’t.
All the weeks of almost during those rough months at the beginning, when she hesitated.
All the maybes that hovered every time we stood too close. All those hours of phone calls.
I groaned against her mouth. One hand tangled in her short waves, the other pressed the small of her back like I could memorize every curve she let me hold. Cherish.
She was fire in my arms. Soft, fierce, and restrained.
When she pulled away, her lips were swollen, chest rising and falling like she’d run a mile. And her eyes—damn, those eyes—held mine like they could read every unfinished promise I made her.
“I still have to go,” she whispered.
My hold remained firm because nothing about this felt temporary. Not anymore. I pressed my mouth to hers again. Tasted Natasha’s lips again.
“I’ve got a jet to catch,” she said, eyes closed.
“Rublyovka. Your parents are already there,” I said between kisses.
“So let me go, Lach,” she murmured. “If you don’t let me go … I won’t go.”
“Good. I’ll keep you.” I groaned, scrubbed a hand through my hair, making space between us. “Your dad would send the whole bratva to hunt me down if you missed Christmas. The clout Jamie and Jordyn garnered would vanish.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
I didn’t answer.
Because that wasn’t true.
Vassili Resnov might’ve let his daughter be around the MacKenzies, but me? He watched me the way a lion studies a threat. Like he already knew what flower arrangement to bring to my funeral.
Jamie’s girl—now his wife—had saved Natasha during her senior year of high school. Prom. Roofie. An opposing bratva son signed his death papers. I wondered if Vassili might accept any of my other six brothers. I was almost the middle child. Brody, Leith, Camdyn, Jamie, me, Rory, Jake.
Probably not. Vassili had been my biggest fan, along with Natasha.
He loved us. Loved the Dodgers. When we started dating, he saw me as an enemy.
Eh. Maybe he was an overprotective father.
He didn’t want her with anyone. As a fellow athlete, I saw grounds for his hatred.
Athletes weren’t known for their fidelity.
I forced a smile. “Understood. I’ve gotta get some sleep for an early flight back to LA, anyway. Dodger pre-camp stuff. And my dad will throw a fit if I miss another Christmas family dinner.”
We laughed, but the ache was already forming. She glanced at the photos one last time, her fingers ghosting a frame’s border.
She picked up her camera bag and slipped the strap over her shoulder. Natasha confirmed her personal driver was around the corner on the elevator.
The lobby was quieter. I stayed close to Natasha’s side, fingers tangled in hers, neither of us wanting to break the moment. Hotel staff, clad in uniforms, opened the door for us.
The icy chill reached in before we stepped a foot outside. Good. I could use the cold. Dating a woman who valued her virginity made me end the day with ice baths.
Outside, the street was alive. Holiday tourists. Taxi horns. A street performer singing off-key. People bustled through the city. For me? Everything stilled. I reached for Natasha’s wrist, gently stopping her just as a black Mercedes G-Wagon slipped to the curb. Her personal driver stepped out.
“Wait.”
Natasha turned toward me, stars clinging to her eyes despite the smoggy night sky above. I nodded to her ride to JFK. Her ride away from me.
I blocked her path. “He can wait.”
A slow smile crept across her face.
“You sure?” she whispered, already stepping into me. “We aren’t wearing hoodies, sunglasses.” She scrutinized the surrounding crowd. The foot traffic hadn’t slowed. Too late to give a damn about famous people or heiresses.
I didn’t answer with words. I wrapped my arms around Natasha’s waist and kissed her like I was starving. Like I hadn’t already memorized the curve of her lips and the gasp that always tumbled from her throat the second my hand anchored the small of her back. Kissed her like this would wreck me.
I built this kiss on every missed chance and every time I’d almost slipped and said I loved her. My hand slid up her spine, fingers tangling in her hair, while her hands gripped the collar of my blazer like she wasn’t ready to let go either.
When she tilted her head and kissed me back harder, mouths clashing, breath quickening, I knew I’d never get enough. Not in this lifetime.
“Lach …” she breathed against my lips, eyes fluttering open.
I kissed her once more. Soft. A promise.
And that was when it happened.
A man surged forward from the crowd and yanked Natasha’s bag straight off her shoulder.
She gasped. “Hey!”
I took off. The man was wiry, sloppy, zigzagging past walkers, dodging past vendors, barreling down a narrow lane that led straight into a dead-end alley.
Idiot.
I was faster.
Guess I wasn’t too much smarter for wanting a taste of Natasha. Should’ve kissed her in the lobby.
I caught the guy by the hoodie. Yanked him back. Slammed him against a brick wall near a hot dog stand. He snarled, swinging a punch at me. I ducked. Drove my fist into his gut. He wheezed. Tried to recover.
Too slow.
Another jab to the jaw sent him crumpling to the concrete, his knees hitting hard. He looked up, dazed and bleeding.
I crouched and gripped him by the hair. “You touch her again,” I growled, “you won’t have hands to pickpocket.”
Then I heard it.
The familiar, soul-souring click of camera shutters.
“Lach MacKenzie!”
“Is that Natasha Resnova?”
“Together?”
I turned, blinking into the wall of flashing lights. Paparazzi. Phones. A growing crowd. Natasha maneuvered the crowd, picked up her bag, and clutched it close. Her shoulders squared. Chin lifted. Eyes … fierce.
Every bit the Bratva princess, she stared at me—no words. Just a thousand emotions flickering behind her gaze. Fear, fury, hurt. Gratitude.
I stepped toward her. The damage was done. But this wasn’t just a viral moment. Not just a bad headline.
Sponsorships? I could handle those. The press? My agent would spin the focus on what the man had done. The league might fine me or bench me.
But Vassili?
Her father barely tolerated me on my best days. And I’d had the nerve to fall in love with his daughter. Our public kiss and its unintended consequence would spark a PR storm that reached Moscow before her jet departed.
I took her hand anyway. “I’m sorry. I should’ve let him go. I’m sure you have insurance on your camera, and you could’ve canceled the cards. I would’ve given you back any cash you had.”
“What money? I’m a starving artist. And I capped the credit cards my pop forces on me. Plus, you saved all those amazing shots I took today.” She snorted, her attempt to make light of the moment weak. “Listen, you protected me.”
“Yeah, well, if we did things the”—I gritted my teeth instead of saying the wimp way—“more incognito like our relationship, your dad would’ve taught him a better lesson.”
Because Vassili Resnov wouldn’t view me as her protector. Damn, daddy’s girls. I’d just given the Bratva Tsar one more reason to hate me.