58
CORA
The room shrinks around us. He’s standing a dozen feet away, but he might as well be breathing down my neck the way my heart is hammering against my ribs.
I can’t have him.
He doesn’t want me.
This isn’t real.
This.
Isn’t.
Real.
I repeat the words to myself again and again as if my mind might be able to keep my heart in line. Like there’s a chance I can wrangle the feeling running wild in my chest, the one mewling and pawing to get close to the man in front of me.
“You’re awake.” His amber eyes see everything. There isn’t a molecule of me he doesn’t examine and make note of.
“I woke up a few minutes ago. Anya was with me. She said you left.”
“I had things to take care of.”
“People to take care of, you mean?” I look him over for any signs of injury. For blood splatter or bruises. I don’t see anything. But I can’t imagine he’d let this sin go unpunished.
His fists clench at his sides. Bands of muscle flex and contract across his arms, shifting the dark tattoos that swirl over his skin. “The man who shot at you is dead. If there was anyone else working with him, I’ll find them all. Every single one.”
God help those people. Wrath clouds his expression. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that look.
“Thank you. For… Well, I don’t remember everything that happened.”
With each blink, I see Ivan kneeling next to me in the bakery bathroom. I see him looming over the dark shadow of my attacker. I feel his warmth wrapped around my body. I smell his musk.
I have to shake my head to clear the bits of memory like rocks from my shoe. “Thank you for saving me.”
“You shouldn’t have needed saving,” he growls. “None of this should have happened.”
“We knew this was a risk. Getting nibbled is the fate of the bait, right?” I try to smile to lighten the mood, but it doesn’t lighten the heaviness in my chest.
Ivan goes perfectly still. His jaw works back and forth, back and forth.
I sit up, clutching the comforter against my chest. “I’m okay, Ivan. I feel fine.”
“You weren’t fine,” he spits. “You were practically unconscious on the bathroom floor. You almost—They tried—He fucking shot at you.”
“And you saved me. I’m fine.”
“Stop saying that. Just stop.” A deep growl rumbles through his chest as he stalks to the bed. He claims the spot Anya was just in, his body brushing against my thigh. “You should be upset, Cora. The last time we spoke, you were mad. Be mad at me. Be furious.”
Our last interaction rises up between us like smoke, obscuring everything else.
I was mad that Ivan didn’t want me. That he could so easily say I would never be the right woman for him.
Then I was livid that I could be drawn back in so easily. One touch—one taste—was all it took to make me forget everything else and give myself over to him again.
Now, thanks to Anya’s story, I know a little about what it is costing him. What he has sacrificed for his family.
And I can’t find it within me to be mad about that.
“The only thing you need to know,” he says, “is that I’ll die before I let someone hurt you again.”
I’m afraid to breathe. This moment is tenuous, fragile. One exhale could send it fluttering away.
Then he takes his hand away.
It’s instinctual—the urge to be close to him, to not let him draw back yet again. I don’t plan to do it, but I find myself lunging for his hand. My fingers wrap around his wrist and I pull him close. I cradle his hand between mine, staring down at where we intertwine.
“What I know,” I say softly, “is that you are a good man, Ivan Pushkin. No matter what anyone says.”
His thumb circles across my palm, sending goosebumps up my arm. “I’m good to my family,” he murmurs. “I’m good to the people who follow me. But to everyone else—to anyone beyond the scope of that, to anyone who threatens me or the ones close to me—I’m a monster. Because that’s what is required of me.”
“By your father?”
“By this life.” Slowly, he withdraws his hand from mine. “If I’m going to keep the promises I’ve made, I don’t have room to be good to anyone else. I don’t have time to add anyone else’s needs to my plate.”
I feel the wall between us going up brick by brick. I want to cry. We were so close.
But Ivan made a deal with his father and he wants to see it through. He wants to take care of his sister and be a good son, even if his father doesn’t deserve it.
He is a good man, which is exactly why he’s trying to push me away.
But the way his head is hanging now and his eyes fix on everything except my face, I don’t think he wants this wall between us anymore than I do. Soon, though, we won’t have a choice. The clock is running out, and I can feel our moments together slipping away.
That doesn’t mean I’m ready to let them go.
I want Ivan right now, like this, even if it’s only for a little while.
So I shove the comforter back, rise to my knees, and climb onto Ivan’s lap. When he looks into my eyes, I drag a finger down his square jaw. “What about your needs, Ivan?”