Page 166 of Filthy Promises

“I mean it, Vince.” Her voice is tired but determined. “I need space to— I just need quiet for once in my fucking life, okay? It’s just been so loud and so crowded and so unbelievably, insanely relentless since I fell into your world, and I just— I just— I just need it to be quiet for a little while.”

I could give her what she wants. Fuck, maybe I ought to.

But I’ve spent a lifetime doing the things I ought to.

I’m pretty fucking sick of it.

So no—no matter what she says, I won’t go. I refuse to leave. Not this time. Not ever again.

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” she asks, her voice vibrating with indignation. “This is my apartment.”

Something cracks open inside me—all the things I’ve been too fucking afraid to say. Too programmed by my father to confess.

“I’m not leaving, Rowan. I’m not giving you an ultimatum, either. I’m giving you the truth.”

Before I can second-guess myself, I drop to one knee in front of her.

Her eyes widen into huge emeralds. “What are you doing?” she whispers.

“What I should have done from the beginning.” I take her hand in mine.

My fingers shake. Vincent fucking Akopov—heir to the Bratva throne—trembling like a goddamn schoolboy.

“Marry me. Not for the baby and not for my inheritance. But for this—whatever this violent, all-consuming thing is between us.”

Her lips part. Her pulse hammers beneath my fingertips.

“I think it might be love,” I whisper hoarsely. “And if you’ll let me—if you’ll accept me—I’ll spend a lifetime proving it to you.”

Her lips part. I’ve never begged for anything in my life.

But I’d beg for her.

“I don’t have a ring. I don’t have pretty words. But I have this.” I press her hand to my chest where my heart hammers wildly, proof that I mean what I say. “It’s yours if you want it.”

49

ROWAN

The most powerful man I’ve ever known is on his knees.

Forme.

Not offering yet another “deal.” Not presenting a “logical solution.”

Offering hisheart.

“I think it might be love,” he said.

Nearly a minute after he said it, the word is still percolating in the air between us, impossible and terrifying and everything I’ve secretly wanted to hear.

“Say something,” he whispers. “Please.”

His heartbeat thunders against my palm, rapid and strong.Real. This is real.

I shake my head, trying to clear the fog of confusion. “But your inheritance. The Bratva. Everything you’ve worked for?—”

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