Page 31 of The Bratva's Arranged Virgin Bride
“Nat,” was all he said. All I needed to hear.
I could get used to this.
When we were both a little more grounded and could breathe without sounding like an overworked steam train, we sat up against the edge of the loveseat. Kolya pulled the knitted throw down and wrapped it around us. Cozy, sweet. Not any words I would have ever applied to him.
Our eyes settled on the painting we started, and both of us started to laugh, trailing off when we were still too weak to exert ourselves that much.
“You have to promise to finish it,” he said. “It’s a good start.”
I shook my head. “I suck at self-portraits. I guess I’m sort of vain because I always make myself look better than I really do, then get embarrassed and destroy it.”
“I’ll finish it, then,” he said, dropping a kiss into my rumpled hair. “Then you’ll see how beautiful you really are.”
A rush of emotion I didn’t want to feel filled my chest like I was trapped underwater and couldn’t reach the surface. In the time we were tangled up together on that rug, I never gave a single thought to revenge, to making him suffer. I couldn’t make myself think about it now, when those feelings were holding me in their grip. My eyes felt dangerously prickly, especially when I tore them from our painting and found the diary, the most perfect gift I had ever received.
I jumped up on shaky legs, tearing the blanket from his shoulders and wrapping it tight around mine as if it could protect me from my own feelings. I had to get out of there. Turning, I ran before he could reach out and grab me back, before I could do something foolish like cry.
Or something truly stupid, like telling him something I couldn’t take back.
