Page 118 of Crave

“You aren’t on your own, not anymore,” he whispers.

“How can I help you? What can I do to help you?”

“Y-you can’t, some things just can’t be undone.”

“How long?”

I take a deep breath, ready to let it all spill out. I trust him. I love him. Maybe he can fix me.

“Since I turned eighteen, on and off. It started off with dad forcing me to count calories and work out to stay in shape so I was in his words a ‘good choice for a wife’.”

He holds me tight.

“And then when I realized there was no getting out of that, it was the one thing I had control over. If I threw it back up, I could eat what I wanted. I could still find joy in life. But then once we came here, it became my lifeline.”

The words are tumbling out so I let them. Alexei is my safe space.

“I hate how I look, whether I’m lighter, heavier, dressed my best or in my sweats. No matter what I do, I look in the mirror and despise the woman staring back at me.”

“And I look at you in all of those times and see perfection, Lara,” he says quietly.

With a shaky breath, I continue.

“Mikhail risked his life, was left permanently scarred, saving us. For what, Alexei? I can’t do anything. I'm basically a prisoner in my own house. No real job, no qualifications. I'm just Lara, a mafia princess waiting to be stolen or married off. Never good enough to be picked.”

“Stop.”

I don’t listen. “Everything around me always falls apart and you know what I do? I starve myself to feel some sense of normalcy. Sometimes I don’t eat for days and work out until the room spins, but all I can hear is my father telling me I don’t look good enough for a man to marry. Every first date never turns into a second and now, I’m so in love with the one man I can’t openly be with, why? Because my brothers control my damn life. Maybe it’s for the best we just go back to being friends. I ruin everything.”

He pulls back and grips my shoulders, looking right into my soul as the tears spill down my cheeks.

“Lara Volkov. I’ve been in love with you for what feels like my whole life. My loyalty may be with your brothers, my heart, that’s all yours, baby. And that comes first, even before my own life. That will never change. What we have, it’s forever. There is no end. We don’t hide. I would be nothing more than honored to be your man to everyone in the outside world, your brothers included. But it’s a risk.”

“Yet, one not worth taking.” I chew on the inside of my cheek to try and bite back the tears.

He tips my chin back up.

“Look at me Lara. You are worth every risk. For you I’ll take the chance on my life and I will fight with everything I have to make this right so we can be together. I only want you, in all your imperfections.”

“And what if this is all too much to deal with, Alexei?”

“I’m asking you to fall with me, Lara. If we crash and burn, so be it, at least we know we tried everything we could for our love. So please baby, I’m begging you, take the chance on us.”

“You really want this? All this broken, all this mess to deal with? I’m not an obligation.”

“Never. My love for you is my fuel, one spark and I can set the world on fire. Our love is forever. No beginning, no end. Infinite.”

“I’ll take the fall with you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, sladkiy. I’ve only ever wanted you. I just don’t know if I will ever be fixed.”

He wipes away my tears with his thumb and presses his nose to mine.

“Maybe we don’t need fixing, maybe we were always meant to be broken together, pchelka.”

CHAPTER 57

ALEXEI

All this timeI have been protecting her and this was happening inside her head?

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