Chapter 14 #3
“I drew foxglove and forty-three other flowers across eight days because the alternative was admitting I was drowning.
I uploaded it to an online platform and prayed people would love it as much as I did.
I never thought it would lead here. I stared at my sales dashboard for two weeks before the first order came through.
I sold one copy the first month to someone in Topeka, Kansas.
Two days later a review popped up reading, ‘these flowers feel like they're breathing’. I cried then too.”
I turn in Rowan’s arms. “You’ve made a dream come true for me and I’ve done nothing but bring problems to your door.”
The world has narrowed to just Rowan and me standing in the middle of his bookstore. His mouth opens and I know he wants to counter what I’m sharing, but the truth is the truth.
I hold a hand up, asking him to let me finish.
“I have uploaded eleven more books since then. I dreamed about seeing my books in a real store, on a real shelf, with a real display, and I never told anyone except Raine because dreams are fragile when you say them out loud and the world has already taught me how fast it can break them.”
I wrap my fingers around his where he’s still holding my face gently.
“You’ve given me a dream when you had the power to crush it.
You saved my life never asking for anything in return.
Not even payment for the wish. You think you are darkness, my sweet Russian, but you have a light inside you that refuses to fade.
You tell me not to let anyone take my light, but that goes double for you. I see you. I see your light.”
As I pour my soul out in the middle of the coloring book aisle, Rowan Volkov begins to tear up. The glimmering shine is unmistakable and for the first time in my life I feel whole.
"Thank you for being you," I whisper.
"Da." I feel he wants to say more, but my big mafia man doesn’t do tears often so choking up in front of witnesses is probably more than he can handle at the moment.
I press my hands to his chest and raise to the tips of my toes. I press my lips to his and it’s just him and me. Our body heat and hearts meld together in that moment.
"You can't just do things like this." I say when I break our kiss.
His chuckle reaches into my soul. "No take backs. You’re a permanent fixture in all of my bookstores." His eyes flash with the same excitement fluttering around in my chest.
The bookstore hums around us. Someone orders a latte. Toddlers squeal again from the picture book section. A ladder rolls along its brass rail with a smooth, metallic whisper.
I am standing in front of twelve coloring books with my name on the spine and my heart in my throat and a man beside me who just rewired my entire understanding of what one word can mean.
Love.
He reaches for me. His hand finds the back of my neck, and the pressure of his fingers against the base of my skull is gentle enough to make my eyes sting all over again. He tips my face up.
The expression on his face has shed every layer I've learned to read in the weeks since he carried me out of my apartment in a towel. What's underneath is the man, exposed, standing where the king usually stands.
"Marry me."
My heart stops. He doesn't drop to a knee or pull a ring box from his pocket. He just stands there with that rough voice and the accent swallowing his vowels and looks at me like I'm the only thing in the room that matters.
"Marry me, Cora."
My mouth opens. The air in my lungs sits suspended between an inhale and an exhale and my brain fires in twelve directions at once, none of them useful.
A fresh wave of tears fills my eyes. I open my mouth to answer.
A familiar ringtone shatters the air between us. I flinch. Rowan's fingers tighten on the back of my neck, a reflex, holding me in place while the sound drills through the quiet of the bookstore a second time. His free hand goes to his pocket.
“Fuck.” His jaw tightens and a muscle jumps at the corner of his temple. He pulls the phone from his pocket with his free hand, glances at the screen. His entire expression shifts from lover to fighter in a blink and I know our stolen moment has come to an end.
While I’m stuck on that thought, his eyebrows lift a fraction of a centimeter. On Rowan Volkov, that fraction is equivalent to another man's full-body double take.
"Rafael." He answers without taking his eyes off me. Rowan listens for three seconds. His expression shifts again, and this time a light enters his eyes that I've never seen before. Warm and sharp at the same time, like sunlight on a knife edge.
Dangerous, yet beautiful.
"Wait." He lowers the phone and holds it between us. His thumb finds the speaker button. "She'll want to hear this. Say again."
Rafael's voice fills the space between us, smooth and dry. "There's a woman here promising bodily harm to me and my brother if I don't connect her with her sister."
My heart stops.
A voice cuts over Rafael's. Sharp, furious, achingly familiar, and loud enough to rattle the tiny speaker on Rowan's phone.
"Lethal bodily harm, buster. I said lethal. There's a legal distinction and I want the record to reflect my exact words."
I can’t keep the smile off my face.