Page 78 of Savage Bratva King

“He won’t.” I kiss the tip of her nose. “By the time he finds out, it’ll be too late. We’ll already be married.”

“But…” She blinks hard while she processes this latest revelation. “I can’t go home and tell him?”

I know what she’s thinking. She’s been held captive since she arrived, and even though she agreed to marry me, she still isn’t free to come and go as she pleases.

“It’s too dangerous right now, and I can’t risk you never coming back to me.”

“I’ll always come back to you.”

I know that she means it, and this makes my chest swell with affection for her. I’m even more determined to keep her close and never let her out of my sight because she doesn’t understand the lengths that Xander will go to, to win this war.

Suddenly, she stiffens in my arms, and I stroke between her shoulder blades with my thumb to try and smooth out the tension.

“Xander wants to kill you, doesn’t he?” Her voice sends a chill down my spine because it’s true.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Let me speak to him, Leo.” She wriggles out of my arms to look at me. “Let me speak to him and Mel. I know I can convince them to end this stupid vendetta against you. Once they know that we’re getting married, Xander will see things differently, and we can all get along the way families should.”

In fairy tales maybe. But in the real world, men like me and Xander rarely shake hands and put the past behind us.

“No.” I fold her hand between mine and raise it to my lips. “You must trust me on this one. If Xander finds out, he’ll do whatever it takes to stop the wedding from going ahead, and I want to make you my wife, Gianna. I want to know that you’re waiting for me when I come home. I want to know that you’re mine.”

She sniffs back tears, but she doesn’t argue. “I am yours.”

“Even without a ring on your finger?”

She smiles although I still see the concern in her eyes. “Do you need me to prove it to you again?” She slides a hand inside my pants and wraps it around my semi-solid erection.

“I think we should maybe go somewhere more private so that we don’t give Olga a heart attack.”

She tips her head back and laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound in the whole world. “I’ll never be able to look her in the eye again.”

“Trust me, Olga will be too embarrassed to initiate eye contact. But she’ll never breathe a word to anyone in case they ask her for details.”

“They wouldn’t.” Her eyes widen. “Would they?”

“So long as Olga believes they would, it works in our favor.” I slide my hand inside my pocket. “I almost forgot.” It’s a lie; I was waiting for the right moment.

I go down on one knee in front of Gianna and take her left hand in mine, slipping a ring onto her finger. Proposing to her like this after fucking her on the grand piano in one of the many rooms that rarely get used in my house, isn’t exactly a red roses and candlelight moment. But then we’re not exactly a red roses and candlelight kind of couple.

“Gianna Sedric, will you marry me?”

She stares at the ring, open-mouthed, and then back at me. “It’s … beautiful.”

“It was my grandmama’s. I went to see her this morning while you were still snoring peacefully in my guest room.”

“I do not snore.”

I shrug and smile. “My grandmama is in her eighties and is still an early riser. She was already in her garden when I arrived, on her knees pulling straggly weeds from the flowerbeds. She always said that the ring would be mine to give to my future wife, and, well, now I finally have a reason to claim it.”

Her eyes tell me all that I need to know.

The platinum band holds a 10-carat, old mine-cut diamond surrounded by antique Russian sapphires that pick out the darker spikes of blue in Gianna’s eyes. I wasn’t certain if she would like it, but I needn’t have worried.

“My grandmama claimed that it belonged to the Romanovs. I believed her when I was a boy, but now I realize that she’s a storyteller.”

“I would love to meet her one day so that I can thank her personally.”

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