Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63391 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63391 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
I chuckle, but her words make me thoughtful. Balance has never existed in my world. There’s always been a push-and-pull, expectation versus freedom, loyalty versus individuality. I had resigned myself to the idea that I couldn’t have everything I wanted. I wouldn’t find love and still meet my father’s expectations for marriage, or I couldn’t be married and also pursue my dreams.
But Isaac has shown me that all my worrying was pointless. In a twist I never saw coming, I’ve ended up with a man who is both everything I once feared and everything I never dared hope for.
He’s ruthless in business, sharp as a blade and twice as cold when he needs to be. I’ve watched people shift around him, lowering their voices and their eyes. He’s the kind of man others are trained to fear.
But when he’s with me, he’s soft and gentle. He’s thoughtful in ways that feel almost dangerous because of how easily they make me fall. He listens when I speak. Not just with nods and grunts, but with focus, like what I say matters. Like I matter.
I thought this marriage would steal everything I ever wanted, namely my future, my independence, my art. I braced myself for the cold, transactional life that comes with a forced union, but Isaac has done everything he can to make sure I don’t lose myself.
If anything, I’m more myself now than I’ve ever been.
“Do I even want to know what you’re daydreaming about?” Evie asks, nudging me with a shopping bag.
I blink back to reality, heat flooding my cheeks. “Sorry, I zoned out for a second.”
“Zoned out or were you having sex fantasies in the middle of the department store?”
I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”
“You’re smiling.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are. And you’re blushing.”
I laugh and duck my head as we exit the store.
“I can’t explain it, okay? I’m still figuring it out myself. But I’m happy, like, actually happy. I didn’t think I would be in this arrangement.”
Evie hooks her arm through mine. “That’s because you thought you were walking into a prison.”
“I did.” I glance at her and smile. “But the reality is, it feels like I’ve finally been let out of one.”
She smiles back, and for a second everything feels right. The sun is warm, our arms are full of bags, and we’re two women laughing in the city as if nothing could possibly go wrong. Then the sidewalk tilts beneath my feet.
It happens so fast.
One moment I’m standing, smiling, laughing, the next, everything around me warps. Sounds blur, my pulse pounds in my ears, and my vision tunnels into black spots. My body sways, knees buckling.
“Katya?” Evie’s voice slices through the fog, suddenly sharp with alarm. “Katya!”
I reach for her blindly, desperately, as the world slips out from under me. Her hands catch my arms just in time to stop the fall, and then everything goes dark.
16
ISAAC
“Isaac, Katya needs you!”
When the call comes in, my mind spins so fast I barely register Evie’s voice beneath the rush of panic. Her words are clipped, breathless, yet sharp enough to jolt every molecule in my body into motion.
Katya fainted in the street. She’s already on her way to the hospital. Those facts whip through my skull like rabid bats, slamming me from every direction.
I’m out the door before she finishes giving me the address. My driver aims for our usual route into the city, but I bark at him to take every shortcut he knows. I don’t care how many red lights we skim past or how many horns blare behind us. Every second feels too long and too far from her. My thoughts won’t slow down. I run through countless possibilities, none of them good. Either someone attacked her, her own body betrayed her, or it’s cancer and she’s dying, or one of my enemies poisoned her.
No. I crush each thought before it can fully bloom. I refuse to entertain worst-case scenarios, not until I see her with my own eyes and know she’s okay. If something happens to her, I don’t even know what it would do to me.
She’s my wife, but she’s so much more than that. She’s become the only part of my life that makes sense. She’s fire, defiance, and too much heart, and I didn’t realize how badly I needed all of it until the moment it was threatened.
When we finally reach the hospital, I’m out of the car before it’s fully in park. Inside, the receptionist recognizes my name and waves me through, proof that Evie already added me to the visitor list. I’ll have to thank her later.
I find them in a private room at the end of the hall. The sight of Katya, upright in bed, talking, undeniably alive, floods me with relief so intense I might be the one to pass out next.