Page 82 of The Brutal Arrangement

From my wife.

Smiling at the sound of her getting into the shower, I hurried to join her and ask her for help with another lesson of how we could learn to be a real couple, a real husband and wife with no end in sight.

31

LUCY

Aweek after Damon came “home” to me and told me that he wanted to try to make our marriage last, he surprised me with an out-of-the-blue laugh.

“What?” I asked, looking up from where I rested my cheek on his tatted chest. This was by far my favorite position to sleep, cradled against his side, in the nook of his arm wrapped around me.

“I just realized we’ve been married for over a month now.”

I smiled slowly, marveling at the fact that we’d not only been married for a month but that we were also getting acclimated to each other.

Over the course of the last seven days, it seemed like we were having our honeymoon period.

If we weren’t kissing and having sex—with and without his kinks for bondage and choking me—we were talking. While it would take a lot more time and much effort to get to what would be considered normal for other people, I was confident we were making strides.

“It doesn’t seem like it,” I replied.

“Not really.” He smirked, rolling me onto my back and kissing a slow, lazy path down my neck as he tried to distract me from thinking at all and just feeling him fuck me hard.

Later, though, in the shower when he grumbled about having to go to deal with work, I recalled the wonder in his tone that we’d made it to a month. Damon would never be quick to share his feelings or talk about them, but as we learned more about each other, I saw how much hope there was between us.

He’d told me that Maxim recorded that lunch conversation I’d had with him and Sloane. I was quick to be annoyed that he’d recorded me, but I liked that Damon hadn’t listened to it until after we made up. He hadn’t tried to patch our rocky start of marriage because of what I’d told his brother, who I now knewwasthe de-facto leader of the Ivanov Syndicate. He’d wanted to reconcile with me because he missed me and wanted me.

We’d held other long conversations too. I told him about what it was like to lose my father, then my mother’s diagnosis. He gave me a rundown of how his father had been poisoned recently. I was open about my experiences of being a maid and feeling like a nobody who’d never catch up with bills to the point I could ever feel like I was actually living my life. And he shared more about his life as a Mafia man.

While details would never be expected or wanted, I appreciated and respected that he was no longer shoving me into the category of an outsider. He didn’t act like I was a suspect. I wasn’t viewed as a threat or potential spy. And that was good enough.

Did I really want to know about his methods of torture? Fuck no.

Did I care to be informed about the illegal and shady things his family did to be this rich? I’d rather not.

All I knew was that this husband of mine was fierce out of nothing but duty. He’d chuckled, amused and not offended, when I told him that I’d overheard Kozlov men referring to him as Demon because he was so deadly of an enforcer and mastermind of torture. But I realized why he was that way. He fought hard to keep his family safe. When it came to a matter of kill or be killed, he was an expert of coming out on top.

A glance at the clock showed me that I ran the risk of being late to meet up with Sloane. Even though this past week had seemed like a marathon of sex and endless time of learning how to be a happily married woman, my future sister-in-law began texting me. It wasn’t so hard to view her as a potential friend. My reservations about trusting someone to be a friend lingered since my experience with Katerina, but I trusted Damon that Sloane would be loyal, not only to the Ivanov family, but also to me.

Feeling overwhelmed with all the baby item options to buy for the nursery, she asked me to hang out with her and pick some more things. Maxim had given her a blank check, of course, and he told her that he wouldn’t stress her out by challenging anything she chose for their baby.

When I got to their floor and found her in the empty room that would be finalized as their daughter or son’s room, I furrowed my brow. She sat on the floor, hunching over with her hand on her stomach.

“Sloane!”

I ran toward her, worried something was wrong.

“Are you hurt? What’s going on?—”

She held her hand out, shaking her head and almost laughing. Still cringing, she didn’t appear in full pain.

“Oh, my God, you’re just as bad as Maxim. Relax.”

I sat next to her, still alarmed.

“It’s just gas!” She shook her head.

“Sorry.” I smiled. “I, uh, have zero experience with pregnant women. You looked like you were in pain.”

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