Chapter 14
Galina
I’m debating what to wear downstairs for dinner when Laszlo opens the bedroom door and strides in, box in hand. “Leonid didn’t want to bring these up,” he says, and throws them on the bed.
“Not surprising after what he witnessed.”
“You told him they were coming.”
“I did.”
“And you didn’t want me there, because?”
“Because you don’t get an opinion on this. Yet.”
“Yet.”
The word hangs there.
Her gaze doesn’t waver. Neither does mine.
“We haven’t even had sex yet,” he points out. “Why would you think I’d have an opinion?”
“You are a man who has opinions about everything.”
“I do,” he says, maddeningly calm. “And one of them is that I’m not finding out you’re on the pill after I’m already inside you.”
Heat slams into my face so hard it almost makes me dizzy. “Jesus Christ.”
His mouth lifts. “That’s the part upsetting you?”
“No, the part where you phrase everything like a fucking criminal charge.”
“I am a criminal.”
“That isn’t the defence you think it is.”
He steps further into the room and makes a point of shutting the door behind him. The memory of what we did flashes through me with humiliating clarity, and I have to look away from his mouth before my body embarrasses me.
I cross my arms. “I ordered contraception. Sensible women do that.”
“I’m not arguing with sensible.”
“Then what exactly are you arguing with?”
“You telling me I don’t get an opinion yet.” His eyes hold mine. “Explain yet.”
I sigh because he will not let this go, and because a part of me knew he wouldn’t. “It means when we are actually married, and this becomes an actual part of our life, then we discuss it. Like adults.”
“We are discussing it now. Like adults.”
“No, Laszlo. You barge in here with a box of pills and turn it into some dominance thing because you can’t stand not being consulted.”
His expression doesn’t change, which somehow makes it worse. “It is a dominance thing.”
I stare at him. “At least you’re honest.”
“I’m always honest with you when it matters.”
“That is such a terrifying thing to hear from you.”
“Fine,” he says. “Let’s try again. Why do you need to order the pill in secret?”
“I didn’t order it in secret. I ordered it and told your fucking house manager to expect it after apologising to your security team like a candidate for Miss World.”
His mouth twitches. “That speech was excellent, by the way. Bravo.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
I huff out a breath, my hands shaking. What I was trying to avoid was confronting him, but I have no choice but to tell him the truth.
“My cousin married this man. Arranged, of course. He was older than her. She didn’t want kids.
He needed an heir. He threw her birth control pills down the toilet.
Every packet she ordered, he got rid of.
Every single time. She got pregnant quickly. She was nineteen.”
“You are twenty-eight,” he points out slowly.
“That is not the point. Bratva men don’t care about their wives. They just want what they want. I’ve seen it a dozen times.”
“So, you thought if I knew about your pills, I’d chuck them down the toilet and fuck you until you got pregnant?”
When he says it like that, I feel like a fool. But I lift my chin anyway and glare at him. “Would you?”
For one second, the room goes completely still.
Laszlo looks at me as if I’ve just put a knife on the table between us and invited him to grab it first. His jaw tightens. Not with anger alone. Something darker. Something that looks almost offended.
“No,” he says.
I don’t move.
He takes one step closer. “No, I would not.”
I hold his gaze, searching for the crack, the evasion, the part where a man says one thing and means another. “You say that now.”
“I say it because it’s true.” His voice drops. “If I want children with you, I will say it to your face. I won’t sabotage your pills like some pathetic cunt who can’t handle hearing the word no.”
My pulse stutters. The brutality of that honesty hits hard.
“Do you want children?” I ask quietly, knowing this conversation is inevitable.
His eyes stay on mine. “One day? Probably. I’m not pretending otherwise.” He gestures at the box on the bed. “Today is not one day. Right now, I want my wife alive, adjusted, and not looking at me like I’m about to trap her with a baby.”
I hate how much relief floods me. It makes me feel weak. Exposed.
“I’m sorry I lumped you in with my cousin’s husband. He is a pathetic cunt.”
“You are doing an awful lot of apologising, Galina,” he says, his face stern. “I dislike the fact that you feel you have to walk around on eggshells.”
My throat tightens. “I’m not walking on eggshells.”
He gives me a look that says he does not believe me for a second.
“I’m not,” I insist, even though we both know I am, a little. Not because he has demanded it, but because every conversation with him feels like stepping into live fire and hoping I come out with all my limbs attached.
Laszlo moves closer until he is standing right in front of me.
Not touching. Just there, taking up space, forcing me to deal with him properly.
“You apologised to my men. You apologised about the package. Now you’re apologising for protecting yourself in the only way you know how. I don’t want that shit from you.”
I fold my arms tighter. “You don’t get to decide how I cope.”
“No. But I get to tell you I don’t like seeing you make yourself smaller.”
That hits harder than it should.
I look away first, toward the bed, toward the box, toward anything but his face. “I’m not making myself smaller.”
“You are when you think you have to earn basic decency.”
My jaw clenches. “You make it very difficult to know where basic decency ends and insane possessive behaviour begins.”
His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Men like you don’t love,” I whisper and then step back, mortified that I uttered this out loud. They do leverage. They do ownership. They do vows that sound like protection and feel like handcuffs.
Laszlo goes very still.
Not angry. Not loud. Just still in a way that makes my pulse trip.
I stare at the floor for one beat, then force myself to look at him because I am not a coward and I am not about to throw a sentence like that into the room and then hide from it.
His expression has shut down completely. Blue eyes cold. Mouth hard.
“Is that what you think?” he asks.
I hate that my throat tightens. “I think men in our world don’t do love without turning it into ownership, power, leverage. I think they call obsession devotion and expect women to be grateful for it.”
He studies me for a second that feels far too long. “And me?”
I swallow. “I don’t know what to think about you. I’ve known you for two days. I have to go with what I know until proven otherwise. I’m sorr—”
He growls and takes a step even closer. “Don’t you dare fucking apologise again.”
I flinch, not from fear exactly, but from the force of him.
His stare pins me where I stand. My heart is going too fast, and I hate that he can probably see it in my face.
“Fine,” I say, because if I don’t speak, I’ll drown in whatever this is. “Then don’t listen to the apology. Listen to the rest.”
He waits.
I force the words out. “I don’t know what you are offering me.
You say ‘mine’ like it means safety, but men in our world have said that before while they were building cages.
You say you’ll protect me, you replace beds, you rearrange your house, you threaten anyone who gets too close, and half the time it feels…
” I stop and press my lips together. “It feels good, and that is the worst part.” Handcuffs don’t always feel like iron the first time they close.
Sometimes they feel like being held. Sometimes they feel enough like safety to make a woman lift her hands willingly.
His expression shifts, only slightly.
I keep going because I have already humiliated myself this much.
“It feels good to be looked after. It feels good when you mean what you say. It feels good when you touch me, and I don’t have to guess whether you’re lying.
” My throat tightens. “That makes me suspicious, Laszlo, because women who relax in this world get punished for it.”
He is silent for a beat.
Then, quietly, “That is the first fucking honest thing you’ve said to me without trying to hide behind attitude.”
The words land hard.
I stare at him, furious that he sounds almost satisfied by my confession, like he has been waiting for me to stop biting and finally show him where it hurts.
“That isn’t a compliment,” I say.
“I know.” His voice stays low. “It’s useful.”
“Useful. God, you are such a bastard.”
“Yes.” He doesn’t deny it. “But now we’re talking about the real problem.”
I laugh once, sharp and ugly. “The real problem is that I don’t trust men like you.”
“You shouldn’t. What you have witnessed with your cousin and whoever else, is the rule, not the exception.”
“So how am I supposed to not walk around on eggshells and keep my pills to myself when you say things like that?”
“By listening to the whole sentence,” he says.
I glare at him. “Then finish it.”
His jaw tightens once. “The rule is that men like me take. The exception is that sometimes one of us decides something is his to protect and means it without turning it into cruelty.”
“That still sounds like ownership.”
“It is ownership.”
I should flinch from the word. Instead, my body answers first, and that betrayal is more frightening than the word itself. I let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You really know how to charm a woman.”
“I’m not trying to charm you. I’m trying to be clear.
” He flicks a glance at the box on the bed, then back to me.
“Take the pills. Don’t take the pills. That decision is yours.
If you never want children, say it. If you want six, say that too.
I’m not making decisions about this on my own.
There are two of us here, and we both need to start acting like it.
I didn’t choose this, Galina. Neither did you.
We were thrust together to prevent a war.
If you walk, or I decide to throw you out, blood will hit the streets faster than either one of us can blink.
Neither of us wants that. But more than that.
When I first saw you, fuck, you hit something deep inside me that has never been touched. ”
My breath hitches at the intensity of his words. “How do we know this can work when we don’t even know each other?”
He takes a second to think, but then he sighs. “We adapt. We start with the little things. Favourite colour, what you like for breakfast. The bigger shit can wait.”
I shake my head. “This can’t. Not if we don’t align.”
“Then what do you want, Galina?”
“I want children with a man I love.”
“Do you think you can love me?”
I close my eyes briefly, and when I open them again, his expression nearly rips me apart. “I want to. That is what scares me. I want to love you. I want to make this work and not just be a life we both have to endure. But how do we do that when we didn’t choose each other?”
“You think choice is the only way people end up right for each other?” he asks quietly.
“I think it helps.”
“Maybe it does.” He exhales through his nose and drags a hand through his hair.
“But plenty of people choose badly every fucking day. They choose because it’s easy, or safe, or they’re bored, or because the other person smiles nicely over dinner and doesn’t show them what’s underneath until it’s too late. We don’t have that problem.”
I stare at him. “No. We skipped straight to the terrifying part.”
His mouth twitches once. “Exactly.”
I hate that I nearly smile.
He sees it. “We know the ugly bits are already in the room,” he says. “You know I’m dangerous. I know you’ll cut me if I piss you off enough. Fine. Good. Better than pretending.”
“That’s not very romantic.”
“I’m not a romantic man.”
“No,” I say softly. “I’m starting to notice.”
Something dark flickers in his eyes. “That doesn’t mean I don’t mean what I say.”
Silence stretches between us, but it feels different now. Less like a standoff. More like the edge of something I don’t have a name for yet.
I look at the box on the bed, then back at him. “Do you want kids?”
“When the time is right,” he says. It’s all I’m going to get out of him, but it’s enough. The time isn’t right now, and we can both agree on that. Maybe it never will be, but maybe we are both okay with that, too.
“God,” I say, dropping my head into my hands. “I hope our families know what they are doing to us.”
“They know,” he says wryly. “Do you know what your dad wants with that corridor?”
The change in topic makes my head snap up. I shake it. “No, plausible deniability.”
He snorts. “Probably for the best.”
“Black,” I say to diffuse the tension.
“Black what?”
“My favourite colour.”
“Technically, black isn’t a colour.”
“Shut up,” I groan. “Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon.”
His stare fixes on me, and something eases in his face. “Spoken like a true, printsessa. Mine’s blue,” he says.
“I could have guessed that.”
“You did not.”
“I absolutely did. Blue bedding, blue suits. Blue. Blue. Blue.”
He ignores me and says, “Coffee. Black. No sugar. Steak rare.”
“Steak for breakfast?”
“It’s a valid breakfast food choice.”
“I’m starving,” I blurt out suddenly after all this talk about food. “When’s dinner?”