Chapter 35 Ivy
IVY
I’ve never worn anything so beautiful in my life.
The gown molds to me like a second skin, glittering faintly beneath the candlelight flooding into the ballroom.
The lace sleeves hug my arms, delicate and floral, while the full skirt sweeps behind me like some fairytale dream. My fingers tremble slightly as I grip the bouquet. Not from nerves, but from the sheer feeling of being awestruck that I’m about to walk down the aisle to my future husband.
To a man who would die for me.
A man who almost has.
“You look beautiful,” Lettie says from my left.
I turn to her and see that she’s already tearing up, a cloth handkerchief patting under her eyes to catch the tears before they fall and smudge her makeup. A laugh escapes me even though it’s really not that funny.
Behind her, my parents are still fussing with my father’s tie, desperately trying to fix the pin anchoring it to his white button-up underneath.
Surprisingly, I’ve felt an overwhelming sense of calm today, peace in a way that I haven’t felt in a long, long time. Maybe this is my sign from the universe that I’m making the right choice, marrying the right man, expanding the family that was always meant to be ours.
“Thank you for walking me down the aisle. It really means a lot to me. I wouldn’t want anyone else by my side for this,” I tell my sister.
She huffs at me, more tears coming. “Can you stop?”
I laugh again. “No.”
“Matvey’s going to think I look like a troll if you make me cry all my makeup off.”
I lightly smack her arm with my bouquet. “Then that means he’s not the one.”
Suddenly, that turns her mood instantly. “You’re so right. I bet Lev wouldn’t care.”
Amused, I reply, “Or Andrey.”
“So true.”
Soon, the music inside the ballroom swells, causing the coordinators to get into their positions in front of the door. My parents are waved up first, coming together to walk down the aisle arm-in-arm to start off our procession.
I breathe in deeply.
“Mama? Are we starting?”
My eyes dart over to my son who’s eying the closed doors curiously. I reach down to smooth his curls back from his face, tucking a few strands of them behind his ear. “Yup. You ready?”
He holds the box in his hands up in the air like a prize. “Ready!”
As soon as the doors are opened, my heart flutters.
Maksim stands at the end of the aisle beneath an arch of white roses and flickering gold lanterns. His usual stoicism cracks the moment our eyes meet and only then does he smile.
I float down the aisle like my feet don’t quite touch the ground, following after Leo beaming proudly in his tiny suit.
Lettie’s arm is hooked around mine while we walk, only parting when reach the altar and I’m handed off to my groom.
She stands on the other side of me, a walking vision in emerald silk, her smile too wide to be anything but proud.
When Maksim takes my hands, the room fades into silence. The vows he speaks are not rehearsed or traditional in any sense, but they’re everything I needed to hear.
“Ivy Bennett, I will protect you with my life. I will love you with what’s left of my soul.
And if I fail at everything else, let me never fail you.
You’ve made life worth living and for that I am forever grateful.
I love you more than you will ever know and more than I will ever be able to put into words. ”
My throat closes, but I manage to whisper mine back, tears burning in my eyes. “You make me feel like I belong somewhere. And that somewhere is with you. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. You are my home. My peace. I love you.”
We kiss, and the applause is deafening.
Leo jumps into Maksim’s arms and together, we kiss either side of his face.
The reception is a blur of dancing and warm laughter.
There’s drinks, of course, that my parents and the Bratva indulge in happily.
Leo insists on dancing with me for a few songs before handing me off to Maksim.
At one point, I catch Lev smirking at Lettie across the table, and Matvey blushing furiously as she leans in to ask him something before nodding for them both to follow her.
They soon disappear out one of the side doors.
Lord knows what the three of them are getting up to.
I don’t bother trying to figure it out, though, too much of my time being spent spinning around on the dance floor with my new husband. Maksim barely leaves my side all night, keeping his hands locked onto my body like the thought of letting me go is unbearable.
Later, when we slip away from the party and climb into the sleek jet waiting on the runway, I think that this is the happiest I’ve ever been.
The honeymoon feels like something out of a dream, or maybe a high-budget TV show.
The jet takes us to a quiet coastal villa tucked into a cliffside in the south of France.
The ocean yawns out beneath our bedroom window, the sea breeze tangling through the gauzy white curtains every morning when we wake up.
We spend lazy mornings curled up in bed, tangled and naked, speaking in a language that has no words and only the gentle rhythm of Maksim’s body meeting mine.
He reads to me at night in Russian, teaching me his language. After my lessons, we make love at a slow and unhurried pace like we’ve got all the time in the world.
Because we do.
For once… we really, really do.
On the flight home, I feel queasy.
Maksim notices immediately and tries to downplay his own worry with a hand on my back and a glass of water at the ready after I’m done heaving over the small toilet. But I see the way he stiffens each time I press a palm to my mouth and bolt to the plane’s tiny bathroom.
“I think I’m just jet-lagged,” I say as I return.
He hums, unconvinced.
It’s not until two days later when we’re back home and in our room that I realize something might be off.
I sit on the edge of the bed and run the numbers. Then I run them again. By the fourth time, I’ve pulled out my phone to order a pregnancy test to be delivered right to the estate’s doorstep, my nerves through the damn roof.
When I take the test, I don’t remember crying, not at first, anyway. It’s not sadness that I feel when those two solid blue lines stare back at me, or even panic. It’s this big swell of emotion I don’t know what to do with, breaking me apart when Maksim finds me hunched over on our bed.
“You alright?” he asks, coming over to kneel in front of me.
That’s when he sees the test sitting in my lap and freezes.
“Ivy…”
My hand tightens around the plastic. For the first time, real fear threads through me.
Since getting back together, we never exactly discussed the whole having children thing. Of course, Leo is our pride and joy. That much is evident in how we both adore him. However, I’ve never bothered to ask if Maksim would be interested in expanding our family again.
Thankfully, I don’t need to.
Because right as I’m choking around the words “what do you want to do?” he breathes out a soft laugh and curls his fingers around mine.
“Oh, Ivy.”
The way he says it, says my name, relieves me instantly. He looks at me with reverence. There’s no fear in his eyes, no hesitation in the way he leans up and presses his lips to mine. He’s a man who knows exactly what he wants, and what he wants is me, and our family we’re creating together.
“A baby,” he murmurs.
I cup his face with one of my hands, smiling through my tears. “This one, you’ll actually get to raise.”
He turns his face in my hand to kiss each one of my fingers. “I’m very excited.”
I’m halfway to telling Maksim about doing the math in my head and when I think our conception date was when a knock at the door distracts me.
Leo comes barreling in, not waiting for us to tell him to open the door. His little face crinkles with concern. “Mama, are you okay? Aunt Lettie said you weren’t feeling good.”
I laugh wetly, wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand. “Come here, sweetheart.”
He inches forward, watching me warily. “What’s going on?”
Maksim scoops him up as soon as he gets close enough. “How would you like to become a big brother?”
His mouth drops open. “A what?”
“A big brother,” I repeat, smiling at him. “There’s a baby in my belly.”
His shriek nearly cracks the windows. He hurls himself into my arms with the force of a rocket.
“This is the best day ever! I’m gonna help take care of them!
I’m gonna teach them everything I know about dinosaurs!
And my race cars! And show them which guards will sneak you extra dessert if you ask nicely! ”
I laugh so hard, I cry all over again.
By morning, the entire estate knows.
Katya bursts into my room right as I’m stepping out of the shower with two jars of pickles and what I think might be an apology in the form of unsolicited parenting advice that sounds straight out of a bad 90s romcom.
Roman brings me a bouquet of flowers later that morning to congratulate me, a handwritten card attached to it that I know I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.
Andrey presents me with a box of chocolate covered strawberries at lunch, spelling out congratulations in the icing that I only manage to eat two of before my black hole of a son gets to the rest.
And to my surprise, Matvey finds me in the afternoon, hands me a large stack of new parenting books, avoiding my eyes as he bashfully tells me to let him know if I need more help with research and he’ll do it no problem.
It’s chaos, but it’s beautiful chaos.
It’s when Lev catches me sneaking a third croissant in the kitchen later that evening that I receive the most precious congratulations of them all. An old photo album of Maksim when he was a baby.
“Figured you’d want to know what you’re getting yourself into with this second one,” Lev tells me, shoving his hands into his pockets when I flip open the front page and see a picture of him and Maksim dressed up in very old, traditional Russian garb at around age ten.
“Since Leo was lucky enough to take after you.”
I laugh, my eyes watering. “Thank you, Lev. This is amazing.”
“Congratulations, Ivy. To you both. You deserve it.”
That night, when Maksim and I tuck Leo into bed, we find ourselves lying with him until his eyelids begin to droop.
“I love you, baby,” I whisper, running my fingers through the ends of his hair.
He turns and hugs me tightly. “I love you too. And the baby. And Dad. And Aunt Lettie even though she was using my tablet to online shop for heels again and wouldn’t let me have it back until dinner time.”
I stifle a laugh. “Go to sleep, sweetheart.”
When his breathing finally evens out, we sneak out of his room and retreat to our own. The second we get the door closed, Maksim pulls me into his arms without a word and carries me over to the bed. We lie like that for a while, soaking each other in as night falls around us.
“You’re quiet,” I murmur.
He presses a kiss to my temple. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He exhales against my skin. “How lucky I am.”
I smile against his chest, tilting my chin up just enough to look at him. “You really are. But so am I. Truly.”
He pinches my side gently, and I yelp, laughter bubbling out between us that we can’t seem to stop until we’ve both got tears in our eyes.
This is our life now, messy and beautiful and louder than I ever imagined. There is still danger out there, still enemies who lurk in the fringes of the Bratva’s stronghold, but they don’t control us anymore.
We’re not running from them any longer.
We’re home. Together.
And we’re finally, finally happy.