Page 85 of Beautiful Deception

“Are you being one hundred percent honest with me?”

She frowns and sits up, clutching the pillow to her chest. “What do you mean?”

“Finn has this theory that you’re secretly a Bratva daughter but I think it’s bullshit.”

“Why would he say that?”

“He thinks you’re trying to play me.”

“Viktor…” She cups my face and brings us eye to eye. “I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that I am not playing you. I truly do care for you. I want to marry you because… because I’ve fallen in love with you.”

She’s so perfect and she doesn’t even know it.

“You love me? I’m not sure I deserve that.”

“You’ve protected me. You’ve taken care of me. When you saved me from Natasha, I knew I loved you. None of that is fake. Trust me on that.”

“I do.” Her eyes are too open and honest for me to think she’s lying.

But… “So, you don’t belong to the Bratva?” I ask.

“No,” she says, though her eyes dim a little when she says it. “I don’t.”

I feel like there’s more she wants to say but she’s holding back.

“I don’t trust easily,” I tell her. “So the fact that I trust you means a lot to me.”

“I love you, Viktor. That is the truth. I never asked for this. I was just looking for a job and then… I ended up working for you and now I have all of these feelings. I didn’t ask for them. They just happened.”

“Finn thinks he saw you at a hotel a year ago. There was a Bratva function going on at the moment.”

“I might have been at a hotel a year ago. I’m not sure. My dad and I were going through hard times and sometimes we would stay in hotels. Or motels, as you know. He might have seen me but…”

“Right. Of course. I knew it was a misunderstanding.” I look at her with more curiosity. “You know, I don’t even know your dad’s name. He’ll be at the wedding, I presume.”

She hesitates. “He doesn’t know. About us.”

“Why not?”

“Because he would ruin this for me. He’s a mess, Viktor. I wouldn’t want him at our wedding. Trust me on that. He would only ruin it. I want a simple, small ceremony for just you and me. I don’t want a large crowd. You can invite your sister. Mrs. Green can come. But I don’t want my dad involved in our life together.”

“I can understand that. But I would still like to meet him. What’s his name?”

“Gleb Roberts.”

I tense at the name Gleb. I remember a Gleb Petrov trying to kill me a few months ago but the bastard got away. He was so low on my radar though that I never bothered hunting him down. I have other things on my mind that have taken precedent.

A pure coincidence, I tell myself.

“That’s a Russian first name,” I say.

“So is Inessa.”

“True.”

“Maybe that was fate telling us we were meant to be together.”

I pull her in closer to me. “Maybe.” I know not all Russians are a part of the Bratva. That would be silly to assume.

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