Page 28 of The Russian's Revenge Bride
“I do.” The words came out rougher than I’d intended, heavy with implications I wasn’t ready to examine.
“Do you, Eleanor Beaumont, take Maxim Voronov to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
She looked directly at me when she answered, her voice clear and strong. “I do.”
“You may kiss the bride.”
This was the moment I’d been dreading. The moment when the performance would become reality, when the legal contract would be sealed with something that felt dangerously close to truth.
I stepped closer, one hand coming up to cup her face. Her skin was warm, soft, and I could feel her pulse racing under my fingertips.
Our lips met, and for a split second, the world disappeared. No chapel, no witnesses, no revenge plot. Just Eleanor and me, and the electric current that seemed to run between us whenever we touched.
She pulled away almost immediately, her eyes wide with something that looked like panic. I knew why she’d done it, could read the fear in her expression as clearly as if she’d spoken it aloud.
She was afraid that if she let the kiss continue, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Afraid that whatever was building between us would consume them both.
The realization hit me like a physical blow, and before I could stop myself, I was laughing. Really laughing, the kind of deep, genuine sound I hadn’t made in years.
Eleanor stared at me like I’d lost my mind, and maybe I had. Maybe this whole situation had finally pushed me over the edge I’d been walking since Prague.
But God help me, I was happy. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt something other than rage and emptiness.
I looked out at our small audience. Anya watching with barely concealed worry. Lev grinning like this was the best entertainment he’d seen in months. Cassandra taking notes like she was planning to bill me for her time. Zara looking like she wanted to stab me with the decorative flowers.
And Rafael, standing in the back with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Approval, maybe. Or concern about what his second-in-command was becoming.
They were all staring at me, at us, and I realized they could see it. The change that Eleanor had wrought in me, the crack she’d put in armor I’d spent years building.
She’d gotten under my skin, past every defense I’d constructed. And somehow, impossibly, I didn’t mind.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the officiant said, “I present Mr. and Mrs. Voronov.”
Mrs. Voronov. Eleanor was my wife now, legally and officially. The plan was working exactly as I’d intended.
I offered Eleanor my arm, and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. We walked back down the aisle together, husband and wife, predator and prey, though I was no longer certain which of us was which.
Outside the chapel, Rafael pulled me aside while the others filtered toward the cars.
“You know there’s no going back from this,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“Do you? Because the way you’re looking at her, the way you laughed in there…. This isn’t just about revenge anymore.”
He was right, and we both knew it. Somewhere between the kidnapping and the kiss, between her defiance and her surrender, this had become about something else entirely.
Something I wasn’t ready to name.
“She’s my wife now,” I said. “That makes her family. And you know what I do for family.”
Rafael studied my face for a long moment, then nodded. “Just remember, Maxim. The heart is the most dangerous weapon of all. Especially when you’re not the one wielding it.”
He walked away before I could respond, leaving me standing in the shadow of the chapel where I’d just bound myself to a woman who was either my salvation or my destruction.
Possibly both.
Chapter 9 – Eleanor
