40. Elena
ELENA
A drik concluded the meeting, and everyone headed off to begin their roles in preventing Gregori from accomplishing whatever he was planning.
It had to be a significant and long-thought-out agenda.
If a man could fake his death for almost two decades and slowly begin a secret regime and commitment to attacking the family he almost ended, then it couldn’t be an impulse.
This was no fleeting scrimmage or minor threat.
Gregori had to mean war.
Adrik did. In retaliation, he would pull no stops in preventing his uncle from seemingly coming back from the dead to finish what he’d started.
Later, as we walked up the grand staircase to retire to our room, I couldn’t stop glancing at him.
To admire his stern posture and the rigid strength he carried himself with.
To witness the steady resolve in his serious expression.
And to check that he wasn’t overly stressed and suffering in such a way only a leader could.
He carried the weight of so many burdens, and I hoped that he would always be ready to lean on me whenever he could.
To talk to me, like he had last night.
To fuck me, like I wished he would every night.
To love me, like I knew he did in such a manner that it could balance the anger and hatred that festered inside him.
Looking like a warrior, still so deep in thought, he convinced me that he would be able to carry through this difficult time of assuming leadership.
“What?” he asked gently as he opened the door to our room.
I smiled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
He almost smiled as he closed the door after me and we moved further into the room. Our private sanctuary. I looked forward to familiarizing myself with this space and always knowing it could be our oasis, when it was just the two of us in here and the rest of the world couldn’t interfere.
Well, it will be just the two of us for a little while longer.
“I was thinking,” I admitted.
“About…?”
“Is Gregori doing this to take the throne?”
He sighed heavily. “I don’t know.” Guiding me toward the walk-in closets with his and her separate rooms, he rubbed his face. “I can see why you would think that, though.”
“He planted that bomb and killed your grandparents. Killing your grandfather would have meant a change in the throne.”
He nodded as he began to undress.
“And with your grandfather gone, your father would rule as the older brother.”
Again, another nod while he continued taking his clothes off.
“But he wanted the power?—”
“That’s what we’ve always assumed. He never laid out any explanation for his actions that day. But all through his life, my father put up with Gregori fighting with him, trying to one-up him, and hating that he wasn’t the elder sibling.”
I began undressing, slowly unbuttoning my blouse. “And that’s why he tried to kill your father, too.”
“Yes. That’s what we assume.”
“But since you were still so young, if he had succeeded in killing your father, he would have been in charge.”
“Fortunately, it didn’t come to that.” Finished with undressing, only in his boxers, he came to assist me with taking my clothes off.
A slow-burning heat showed in his eyes, but his touch wasn’t overly playful or sexual, proving, again, that we didn’t only have the sexual chemistry to bring us together.
“So now… if he’s trying to make a comeback right when your father is about to die…” I furrowed my brow. “Could he…”
“No. He can’t do anything, Elena. I won’t let him.”
I peered up at him, taking his word for it but still nervous about the high stakes of it all. “Because you are here.”
He cupped my face. “I will always be here to protect you and our family.” The following kiss he gave me was gentle and tender, full of love and his sincere promise.
“He would have to make sure you couldn’t assume power.”
He nodded. “And then Maksim. Viktor. Nikolai.”
I licked my lips, chilled to be this naked. He hadn’t stopped to leave my bra or panties on. Instead, he backed up to take his boxers off and brought me to the bathroom to shower together before we got into bed.
“He won’t succeed, Elena. We are on to him, and we are preparing for war.”
I trusted him when he stated that, but…
“I just don’t want to lose you. We just managed to come together. We just got married. We have a baby on the way and…”
He kissed me as the steam rose from the shower. “You will never have to worry about losing me. We are a team, and we will never bow to anything he’s scheming.”
I smiled at him, wanting to swoon at his strong words as he held my hand and brought me into the shower with him. Warm water rained down on us, but it was his heat I sought. I hugged him, embracing him as we stood together for a quiet moment.
“I hope you understand what I said at that meeting earlier,” he said solemnly.
I leaned back to look up at him. “Which part?”
“About how if it weren’t for you, we’d be struggling.”
I nodded. “Maybe it was meant to be.” I kissed his pec.
“I will always be grateful,” he said. “I won’t waste time thinking it could’ve been karma or fate or anything like that. I will just be grateful that your father ever thought to sell you to me, to offer you to me because he wanted to avoid any punishment for himself.”
“Me too.” I reached up on my toes to kiss him.
I was confident that with all the ups and downs we'd managed to survive, our love would never die. It was forged in darkness, but it would always prevail.
“That day, that morning when I found out about the trouble with that transaction for your account, one of the women in the office was bragging and gloating about being newly married and expecting a baby. Again. I still can’t remember what her name was.
Linda or Lisa. She’s always been Linda-Lisa in my mind. ”
He smirked. “She must not have been very impressionable.”
“She wasn’t. But I do remember how she was carrying on about expecting another baby so soon.
It got me thinking that I couldn’t even imagine a future like that.
Meeting someone to marry. Never doing anything but working overtime and basically cleaning up my father’s mistakes and messes that he was never even going to admit the truth to me about. ”
He tipped my chin up and kissed me.
“Now, I know that I can expect the whole world. With you.”
“You can. You should.” He laid his mouth on me again, lingering until I parted my lips and he could slip his tongue in to duel with mine.
It was a slow, sensual tease this time, not a rush but a lazy exploration.
We would continue to explore and learn more about each other, and I looked forward to the adventure.
“Now, it’s not a matter of worrying about what’s expected of me ,” I added.
Truly, I had no need to stress about being stuck at my father’s firm. He was gone and I’d “promoted” myself to look after my family here with their finances and accounting.
Better yet, I no longer had to be burdened with the fear of anyone learning about what I was an accomplice to. No cops could get to me under Adrik’s protection. No other criminal organizations could dare to find me and question what I knew.
There would never be an obligation to be sworn to secrecy. I was sworn to loving this man and preparing for our child.
“Now, all I need to do is stand by you,” I said before I kissed him again. “And to get ready to welcome our child into this beautiful world.”
It would be a dangerous one, too. I wasn’t so na?ve as to dismiss how threats would always be there, around every corner.
They still had to figure out who had tried to break in to the guest house that one night, but if anything like that were to happen again, I believed they would meet the same fate.
Adrik would keep his promise to see to my security and that of our child. This man, this boss, this leader, would do all he could to keep us from harm despite his uncle coming out from hiding and organizing a shadow network against us.
Gregori wouldn’t stand in the way of the future I now could envision with Adrik.
One with our growing family.
And our everlasting love.