Page 18 of A Baby for the BRATVA Boss
When our eyes meet, the warmth in his looks nothing like control.
“Too small,” he says abruptly, nodding at a tree beside us. “You deserve something bigger.”
I roll my eyes with a grin; the double entendre isn’t lost on me after last night and this morning.
We stop in front of a tall spruce, branches full and symmetrical, snow settled like lace along the needles. I touch the lowest branch, and it bounces gently under my fingers.
“This one,” I say.
He circles it once, studying it like it’s a deal he’s about to make. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He gestures to the farmhand waiting a few paces away. “We’ll take it.”
The man nods quickly, then hurries off to fetch a saw. Yury watches him go, then looks back at me. “You’re smiling.”
“Because this feels…” I hesitate. “Normal. Like it’s exactly where I was always meant to be.”
He steps closer, his voice dropping. “You smile like that and it makes me feel things...”
Something flickers through me, not just warmth but pride. When I look up at him, I realize that being beside a man like Yury doesn’t make me smaller. It makes me feel bigger. More seen. More certain of myself.
He takes the saw from the returning farmhand and kneels, cutting through the trunk himself. Snow falls from the branches onto his shoulders, dusting his dark hair, and the sight of him like that, powerful, capable, doing something so ordinary, makes something twist deep inside me.
When he stands again, the tree balanced on his shoulder, I can’t help it. I laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously efficient,” he corrects.
“Ridiculously…” I trail off, watching the muscles shift under his coat as he carries the tree. “Never mind.”
He catches the look, and his grin, faint but real, cuts through the cold. “Finish that thought,angelu.”
“Maybe later,” I say, and the flirty defiance in my voice surprises even me.
As we head back toward the car, the sun slips through the clouds in a pale gold wash. The light hits his profile, sharp in the shadows, and I can’t stop staring.
Last night, I was afraid that being with him would destroy me. But standing beside him now, surrounded by snow and pines and the sound of distant bells, I realize something else:
With him, I don’t feel broken or scared or worthless.
I feel powerful.
When we arrive back at his place, the house feels softer. He props the tree in a corner near the window, and stands back to inspect his work.
“It needs decorations,” I say, brushing snow from my gloves.
He nods toward a cabinet against the far wall. “Check in there. You’ll find things from previous years. Boxes. Ornaments.”
The cabinet creaks open, inside are mismatched pieces. Glass baubles, hand-painted angels, tinsel tangled like silver webs. I run my fingers through it all, half-laughing. “You keep everything.”
“I keep what’s worth keeping.”
When I glance back, he’s watching me, not the tree. There’s a warmth in his eyes that wasn’t there before, a kind of quiet amusement that softens the edges of his intensity. I pick up a delicate glass snowflake and hold it to the light. “This one’s perfect.”
He crosses the room, takes it from my hand, and hangs it high on a branch. “Then that’s where it belongs.”
His knuckles brush mine when he steps back, and a spark shoots through me, hot and immediate. I catch my breath before he notices. Or maybe he does, the corner of his mouth curves like he’s hiding something.
