Chapter 39

“Their job is to keep you alive.”

“By invading my privacy? By watching every move I make?” The elevator feels too small, too close. His scent surrounds me, and I hate how it makes my stupid, traitorous body respond.

“Yes,” he answers simply. “That’s exactly how.”

The elevator opens on my floor. I stride down the hallway, my key shaking in my hand. As I approach my door, I notice another man stationed at the end of the corridor. This one does an extremely half-assed job of pretending to check his phone.

“Jesus Christ, they’re everywhere.”

Vince says nothing, just waits while I unlock my door. God, his silences are as infuriating as the times he chooses to speak. I can’t decide which I’d prefer.

I step inside my tiny apartment. With him here, I’m seeing it through his eyes—the secondhand furniture, the faded paint, the single window with its depressing view of bird shit and bricks.

My life laid bare, small and shabby compared to his world of luxury and power.

But it’s mine. It’s safe. It’s normal.

Or it was.

Until he came into it.

I spin to face him. “You had no right,” I repeat, fury building. “No right to put men outside my home, to watch me, to control my life like this.”

“For the last fucking time, I’m not controlling you,” he counters, closing the door behind him. “I’m protecting you.”

“I don’t want your protection! I want my life back!”

“That’s not possible anymore.”

“Because you decided it’s not?” I step closer, anger making me bold. “Who gave you the right to make that decision for me?”

His eyes darken. “The moment those men targeted my car, with you inside it, this became non-negotiable.”

We’re standing toe to toe now, my face tilted up to his, his breath mingling with mine. The air between us crackles with tension—anger, yes, but something else, too.

“You think I want this?” he asks, voice dropping low. “You think I want you in danger? You think I want men watching your every move?”

“I think you want to control everything and everyone around you,” I retort. “And I won’t be controlled, Vince.”

His eyes flash. “Is that what you think this is? Control?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, Rowan.” He steps closer, forcing me to tilt my head further back to maintain eye contact. “This is me doing whatever it takes to keep you safe. Because the thought of those men getting to you—” He breaks off, jaw tight with barely contained emotion.

A knot shifts in me, anger mingling with a different heat entirely. God, I’m so fucking mad at him—and yet, the intensity of his concern cuts through my rage.

“I didn’t ask you to protect me,” I say again, but my voice has lost some of its fire.

“You didn’t have to.” His hand comes up, fingers grazing the cut on my cheek. “This happened because of me. Because you were with me. I won’t let it happen again.”

I shouldn’t lean into his touch. I should step away, maintain the rage that’s my only defense against the overwhelming pull of this man.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

“I’m still furious with you,” I whisper.

“I know.” His thumb brushes across my lower lip, his eyes tracking the movement. “Be furious. Be anything you want. But be alive to feel it.”

The space between us shrinks to nothing. My hands find his chest, half-pushing, half-clutching. His heart pounds beneath my palm, its rhythm matching my own frantic pulse.

“Vince…” I breathe, not sure if it’s a warning or a plea.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs, fingers sliding into my hair. “Tell me, and I will.”

I should.

I know I should.

I don’t.

28

ROWAN

There are times in this life when you know you’re standing at a crossroads. It’s so obvious that a choice splits your fate in two.

Left is one world.

Right is another.

I’m standing here at one of those points. A fork in the path.

On one side is Vincent Akopov. A winking, bloodstained, secretive, snarling, furious enigma of a man. He will never give me all of him and I should be terrified if he ever tries, because “all of him” means being discarded like used-up trash at best and executed on some godforsaken sidewalk at worst.

On the other side, though, is… what?

Nothing. More of the same bleak emptiness I’ve lived for so long. For twenty-seven years, I’ve drowned in it. I’ve longed so badly for someone to sweep me out of the dull, dreary grayness of my loneliness.

He came and offered me that.

So in the end, the choice isn’t a choice at all.

When Vince bends down to kiss me, I let him.

No, I don’t just let him.

I kiss Vincent Akopov back like I’m drowning and his mouth contains the last sip of oxygen on earth.

His response is as immediate as it is brutal. He crushes me against him, one hand fisted in my hair, the other gripping my hip with enough force to bruise.

I hope it does. I want a souvenir of the moment I chose the wrong path willingly. I want a memento of the only sin that ever mattered.

There’s no gentleness here. No romance. It’s a fucking collision that’s been scripted and building and brewing and heating. Two comets rocketing toward one another, on an irreversible course since the moment I walked in on him fucking his secretary, since he looked me in the eye and winked.

You’re next, that wink seemed to say. You’re mine.

And now, at last, I am.

He walks me backward until my legs hit the couch, and then we’re falling, his weight pinning me down, his hands already shoving up my borrowed sweater. My body arches into his touch, desperate for more.

“I hate that you’re making me need this,” I gasp against his mouth.

He bites my lower lip hard enough to make me cry out. “No, you don’t. You hate that you’ve always needed it.”

He’s right. That’s the worst part. Five years of watching him from afar, of building elaborate fantasies around a man who didn’t know I existed—all of it leading to this moment where I’m writhing beneath him on my secondhand couch like some desperate, touch-starved animal.

Which, let’s be honest, is exactly what I am.

His mouth moves to my neck, teeth scraping over my pulse point. I dig my nails into his shoulders. I’m trying to ground myself against the onslaught of sensation. But it’s impossible. He’s everywhere—his scent, his touch, his weight pressing me into the cushions.

I’m drowning in him.

“If you’re unsure⁠—”

“No! No,” I breathe, and it feels like jumping off a cliff. “Don’t you dare stop.”

He grunts.

Then he shreds my sweater off my body.

His gaze rakes over my torso, lingering on the simple cotton bra that suddenly seems pathetically inadequate. I fight the urge to cover myself, to hide from the intensity of his scrutiny.

“Look at you,” he says, voice thick with want. “So fucking perfect.”

The praise burns through me. It ignites places that have been cold for far, far too long.

I reach for him, needing to feel his skin against mine, but he catches my wrists and pins them above my head with one strong hand.

“Not yet,” he commands. “I’ve waited five years to have you beneath me like this. I’m going to take my time.”

Five years? The confusing words barely register through the haze of desire. He’s known about me that long?

But then his free hand is skimming down my chest, tracing the curve of my breast through cotton, and rational thought evaporates.