Page 51 of Forbidden Bratva Virgin

He was out of his chair now, crossing the room in long strides to stand in front of me, his nostrils flared and eyes narrowed. My head tilted further back to meet his gaze until I forced myself to rise to my feet.

“Miron,” I mumbled shakily and had a hard time looking him in the eye. Saying his name aloud made our situation a lot more real, and my silly heart wouldn’t stop pounding in my chest. “I…I gave it a lot of thought, okay? That night was, um…it was…itcan’t happen again.”

“What?”

“Hold on, I have to say this. I know it was consensual. We were two consenting adults.” Standing close to him was messing with my logic, so I side-stepped to inhale something other than him. “We were swept up, enraptured in the heat of the moment, and that’s it. That’s all it will ever be, Miron—a mistake.”

He took a step closer, and I took one back, leaning closer to my desk to have something to grasp onto when I pulled the rug from under our feet.

“Hazel, listen to me—”

“No, Miron. I want you to listen to me.” I tried to muster a smile, but the tears were starting to blur my vision. “That night was a mistake for so many reasons, and I’ll do you a favor by starting with the most obvious one: Look around. We’re in my office. The desk behind me? It’s mine. It’s my seat of control during working hours because Iworkhere. That one over there, the green one? That’s yours, and that is because you are myclient.I know you don’t understand this, but here, I am responsible for you, your well-being, your progress, and your recovery. I can dig into your personal life, only to help you. Nothing else. No form of intimacy is allowed. If Amelia gets wind of what happened, I could lose my job, and I do not want to lose this job, Miron. It’s almost everything I have left. What we did was wrong and against the codes of professional conduct guiding our relationship. It was unethical and should never repeat itself.”

Miron surprised me with a sudden burst of laughter, but it sounded as dry and empty as the look on his face. “Now you’re only repeating some shit from an actual textbook. We both know the reason you’ve been avoiding me is beyond these four walls.”

“And you’re right,” I snapped back. “There’s also Nathan to think about, remember? My boyfriend?”

“Jesus.” He brushed a hand down his face, frustration slowly seeping through the cracks of his barely composed façade. “That cheating idiot? You’re still thinking about him?”

“Eight years, Miron!” I whisper-shouted. “Eight long years! Don’t you understand? We were building a life together, a life I laid the foundations of. We made plans. We had goals. Being with Nathan has always been a very big deal to me. That’s not a joke. That is not something I can just walk away from. I cannot turn my back on him. Not right now. I know there’s a possibility that there is another…but Miron, it’s hard to just walk away. Nathan is all I’ve ever known.”

Miron’s jaw tightened, and he exhaled sharply through his nose. The frustration simmered, and he drummed his fingers on his thigh, his restraint unraveling.

“You know you have to leave him. You are only hurting yourself by staying.”

We had sex for one night, and now he cares if I’m hurting?

“It is not that simple. I’ve already explained it to you.” The room felt smaller, suffocating, but I stayed pinned to the edge of that desk. “We’ve been together so long, it feels safe.”

“Safe?” He came closer, leaned forward. “You call this safe? Being stuck, miserable, afraid to let go?”

I flinched. “I’m not miserable.”

“It sure as hell looks like it. And I don’t know why I’m finding it so fucking hard to pull away. You think you’re the only one with things on the line?”

“No, Miron!” I was trying so hard to keep myself from exploding. “Can’t you see? That’s another reason why that was a mistake. You’re engaged, for crying out loud. Promised to another. What we did…it’s only going to be a continued cycle of hurt, and I can’t stomach knowing that I caused another that kind of pain.”

His frustration sharpened, his fingers digging into his fists before he let them open again. “I should walk out of that door right now and ask Amelia for a better person. Someone who wouldn’t play with my head and mess it all up like you’re doing to me. Hazel, when I look at you, I can’t think straight. I can’t stop myself.”

For a while, all I could do was stare up at him, my heart pounding in my chest, my breath shallow. His presence was suffocating, and yet, I found myself unable to pull away, to create that emotional distance I so desperately needed.

He reached forward, and his fingers brushed against the edge of my hand, just a whisper of contact, and I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through me.

My breath hitched, my pulse spiked, and before I could stop myself, I found myself leaning in ever so slightly.

“I don’t want to need you like this,” he continued, his voice dropping to a near growl. “But I do.”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I wanted to say something, to tell him again that this was wrong, that he was crossing a line, that I was here to help him, not to be pulled into whatever this was between us. But the words didn’t come. Instead, I sat frozen, feeling the weight of his gaze on me, the intensity of his feelings pressing against me.

And despite everything inside me screaming to stay professional, I couldn’t deny the flutter in my chest, the undeniable pull that his words had on me. I couldn’t ignore the way my body responded to the heat of his proximity, the raw need that simmered just beneath the surface of his controlled exterior.

I wanted to pull back, to regain control. But in that moment, I didn’t want to.

And that terrified me.

“I can’t stop thinking about you, Hazel. You’re all I think about since that night. And I don’t know how much longer I can keep it together.” Then, thankfully, he stepped back, his gaze lingering on me, almost too heavy, too intense.

I swallowed hard to find my voice, trying to steady myself, but my heart was racing, my thoughts a whirlwind. “Sex isn’t all there is to life, Miron, and you know it. It was one night, and that’s all we’d have. It is not happening again. A few months or a week down the line, you’ll realize that you’ve broken free from the euphoria of that moment. Or better yet, when you see your gorgeous wife walking down the aisle.”

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