Page 64 of Captive Vows
“No.” I shook my head and took a seat. Emil poured me a drink but I didn’t rush to pick it up. “She’s not either of those anymore.”
“Then what is she?” Allen asked, coming into the room and bringing a tray of more vodka.
“My…” I sighed. “She’s mine.” I wasn’t in the mood to talk about fucking feelings and sappy emotions at the end of such a grisly and violent night. But they would be the ones I’d trust with a conversation like this. Maybe I needed them to put me on thespot like this to force me to admit what I was feeling about this woman I hadn’t planned to keep here for long at all. “That’s all you need to know. She’s mine.”
I lifted my glass and glanced up at them. All four of them stared back at me, nonplussed. Emil’s smirk of amusement peeved me. “What?”
“She’s yours?” he replied. “No shit. You’re fucking crazy about her.”
I wouldn’t necessarily use that wording, but he had a point. The way she made me feel just before I came apart inside her was an out-of-the-world experience.
“Would it be so bad if I allowed her to be mine?” I asked. In my head, I intended that to be a rhetorical question, but as I let the words leave my lips, I wanted their opinions. “Would it be such a trouble if I let her stay?”
Allen raised his brows. “I wasn’t aware that she had to have an expiration date.”
“She doesn’t,” I said. But I had taken her on the premise that she’d be the product of a transaction. An asset I could unload for the best profit.
“I don’t think it would be the end of the world if you committed to her.” Alexsei shrugged, glancing at his phone where the camera feed showed the room of his son, Misha, back at his house. Even when he was out on a mission with us, he’d have a link to watching over his child. “I mean, if you proposed and?—”
“No.” I barked a laugh. “What the fuck are you saying? Propose? No. No fucking way. I’m notmarryingher.”
A housekeeper kept her head down as she collected the empty glasses to take out.
“I’m not fucking marrying Gabriella. Ever.” I slashed my hand through the air to make that a fact. “She’s just here for fun. For now. That’s it.”
“Why?” Alexsei set his phone down and sighed as he faced me. “Why can’t you marry her? We can’t all be bachelors forever.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m a widower.” Although, as I said that, it felt untrue. Maria had died so many years ago. “Or I was.”
No one had to remind anyone that Alexsei was the more recent widower. His loss was too tender to bring up.
“Besides,” Emil said, swatting his hand at Ivan’s upper arm. “He’s still so lovesick about his fiancée that he’ll never marry anyone else.”
Ivan scowled, cutting my son a stern glower. “Shut the fuck up.”
“It’s true,” Emil insisted of Ivan’s former lover he’d left suddenly and never gotten over.
“Hey, maybe you could try again to find her,” Alexsei suggested, “then marry her when you’re older.”
Emil laughed as he stood, then stretched, showing similar signs of a hard fight like I had when I walked into Gabriella’s studio. “Older? Don’t wait too long and be old like this one.” He set his hands on my shoulders and squeezed lightly, teasing me.
“Joke all you want,” I replied coolly, letting a smile lift my lips. “Gabriella seems to appreciate how much older I am. She has never complained about how knowledgeable I am to pleasure her.”
Emil rolled his eyes and bade us goodnight as he left on that note.
Once the others left as well, I finished my drink and returned to my bedroom. To my bed.
To my… woman.
For now.
24
GABRIELLA
When my period didn’t come a week after I expected it, it put a twist on the concept of my life being completely changed.
I can’t be…
