Page 102 of The Bratva's Captive

She glanced up at me as we entered the facility, and I swore I would never forget the sincere love that shone from her eyes in that moment.

Fifteen minutes later, I experienced an even more unforgettable moment of seeing the ambiguous figure of our child on a monitor. Cast in black and white as the ultrasound technician measured the baby was the image of my heir. I couldn’t tell what was what and most of what the technician said went in one ear and out the other. I’d pore over the doctor’s notes later.

With the steady thump of our baby’s heartbeat on the speaker, I was mesmerized with this new life we’d created.

In lust. In love. In whatever she wanted to call it. Sloane and I came together and had formed this new beginning.

“I love…” Sloane sniffled as she stared, just as mesmerized with the image on the screen and the sound of the heartbeat.

I picked up her hand that I still held tightly. “I love you.”

She turned to kiss me, smiling with unshed tears in her eyes. “I love you, too. And I love him.”

“Him?” I laughed once, then frowned and looked at the tech, who smiled and shook her head.

“No way. Too early to tell,” she quipped.

“I can tell,” Sloane predicted. “I’m calling it.”

I rolled my eyes and kissed her again. “We can wait and find out for sure.”

“Him or her. I don’t care. I love this baby and I love you,” she confessed, truly and openly.

“I love you both more than you can ever imagine,” I replied.

And I will never, ever let either of you suffer for a day in this life.I vowed it and would keep it forever. That was a future I would commit to with every fiber of my being.

“Marry me.”

Sloane turned her head back to me and furrowed her brow. “What?”

“Marry me,” I repeated.

She rolled her eyes and huffed. “Okay, we’ll take this one day at a time.”

I shook my head as the technician wiped the ultrasound gel off Sloane’s stomach. As she left the room, seeming to realize this was a private moment, I helped Sloane sit up.

“No. Marry me.”

She squinted at me. “Are you asking? Or is that an order?”

I pulled the ring case out of my pocket and presented it to her. “Either. Both.”

She laughed once as I took her hand and held it up. “Maxim! You—” She laughed again, staring at me skeptically but with asmile growing on her face. “You just spent a week brooding and isolating me because you couldn’t commit and now?—”

I kissed her quiet, loving how she curled against me and kissed me back harder. Neither of us could resist the other.

“Let’s just take this slow and…” She looked down at the ring.

“No. I need to know, Sloane. I need to know that you’ll be mine forever. As my wife. My partner, no matter what.”

For someone who’d never wanted to trust a woman for more than one night, I was now desperate to trust in her love and forgiveness of me.

She had to say yes.

“Please. I can’t have a future without you. Without youandour child so we can raise him or her together.”

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