Page 47 of Charmingly Obsessed
It’ll last forever, Diana. Forever. Because I love you. Because I can’t live without you. Because you’re the fucking air I breathe.
“It’s… uncertain,” I force out, the lie thick and heavy on my tongue. The truth is too much. Too soon. “The deal… it could take time.”
Diana shifts uneasily on the couch, studying her hands as if they hold the answers to the universe.
“I… I can’t do more than three months, Mykola.”
“W-what? Why not?”
“I just… I just can’t,” she repeats, a strange, unfamiliar stubbornness in her tone, dragging the words out as if they physically pain her.
“Fine,” I manage, clearing my throat, though it feels like it’s full of broken glass. “Then… three months it is.”
My mind races. Three months. I have three months to convince her. To make her see. To make her… love me. Or at the very least… get used to me. To this. To us. It’s not enough time. It’s an eternity. It’s everything.
“You agree?” I cut through the suffocating silence, my voice not even sounding like my own. It’s thin. Reedy. Desperate.
“Yes,” Diana nods.
To hell with it all.
It’s not enough. It’s not fucking enough.
But it’s a start.
“Now,” I demand abruptly, the word exploding out of me. I start pacing the length of the living room, too much restless, frantic energy suddenly coursing through me. “We’re getting married.Now.”
She stands slowly from the couch, her eyes wide, glancing around the opulent room as if she’s trying to orient herself on a ship in the middle of a hurricane.
“What… what are you talking about, Mykola?”
“Now. Now! Today. Tonight.”
I’ve never seen her so stunned. So utterly lost. Her beautiful face is a mask of confusion and disbelief. And God help me, I want to keep pulling new emotions from her. All of them. I’m like a fucking power plant; I need to charge myself on Diana Bilova just to function, just to feel alive.
“That’s… that’s impossible,” she laughs, a soft, shaky sound that does nothing to soothe the raging inferno inside me. “We don’t have any paperwork. Licenses. It’s… it’s already five o’clock.”
“Impossible?” I stop pacing, turning to face her, a wild, almost feral grin stretching my lips. “Diana, darling, nothing is impossible. We’ll be married in an hour and a half. Maybe two, tops. I’ll take care of everything. Consider it handled.”
Diana just stares at me, like I’m speaking in ancient Aramaic. Like I’ve sprouted a second head.
I can’t take it. The distance. The uncertainty. I close the space between us in three long strides, my hands reaching for her, gathering her close, pressing her soft, trembling body against mine.
“Mykola, you can’t just… get married like this. You… you need things. At the very least, you need a contract. Lawyers. Witnesses…”
“And here I thought,” I cut her off sharply, tilting her chin up, forcing her to meet my gaze, my eyes burning into hers, “the entire goddamn point of being Mykola Frez was that I can do whatever the hell I want. And I will, Diana. Whatever. I. Want.”
“Mykola…”
“Diana.” My voice is a low, possessive growl. “Now. Let’s go.”
She opens her eyes. And there’s something new there. Something… resolute. “Alright,” she says softly. “Okay. Let’s go.”
And the chaos inside me – the storm, the inferno, the abyss – for one brief, glorious, terrifying moment, aligns into perfect, breathtaking order.
She saidyes.
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