Page 51 of Crimson Curse
Naomi exhales in a thin line and then closes it and collects herself. “Are you telling me because you want me to be afraid?”
“I’m telling you because I will not hide from you,” I say softly. “And because I need you to know the shape of our life. People will try to turn the things we love into keys they can twist. They will fail if we decide together how those things are held. You are not a lever or a piece on someone else’s board. You are my equal. You are the woman I choose. You are the person I trust more than anyone alive.”
Her eyes flood again. She shakes her head slowly, as if to say she cannot take any more, yet she wants everything I am offering.
I take her left hand. “You are not my weakness,” I tell her. “You are my reason. You don’t make me smaller. You make me stronger. I will break every hand that tries to use you against me. I will build the kind of life where this garden belongs to us and no one else. I will fail sometimes. I will lose my temper sometimes. I will never lie to you about who I am and what this world demands. I will never put you second to a title. I’m asking you to be my wife, not because of the child, or strategy, but because I cannot imagine a future that is worth anything without you in it.”
I slide the ring onto her finger. It settles there with certainty. She looks down at it and then at me again. Her lips part, and her voice shakes.
“I don’t know what to say,” she murmurs.
“Say yes,” I beg her. The words come out hushed and raw. I have ordered men to their deaths with a steadier tone than this. “Not for survival. Not because the world expects the Zorinpakhanto have a wife at his side. Say yes tome. Say yes because you want to build this life with me and because you know I will spend every day proving that your ‘yes’ was the right choice.”
She laughs through a sob and wipes at her cheek. She looks down at the ring again and touches the sapphire with the tip of her finger as if she can feel what it means through the stone. She steps closer in the smallest way, only a breath, but I feel it like a tide.
“Naomi,” I say. Her name sounds like a prayer, and I don’t care if that is sentimental. I have earned sentiment. “Will you marry me?”
She takes another breath and steadies. She lifts her free hand to my face and sets her palm along my jaw. She holds my eyes for a long moment. In that moment, I see the museum intern who argued with me about provenance, the woman who walked into a room full of dangerous men and stood at my side without trembling, and the person who reached into the locked parts of me and opened them without force.
“Yes,” she answers. “Yes, Daniil, I will marry you.”
I rise, and she leans into me. Her arms go around my neck, and my arms go around her waist. She cries and laughs at the same time. I do too, though mine arrives as a choked sound in my throat that no one else will ever hear. I kiss her, slow and complete, not as a man claiming territory, but as a man surrendering everything he never wanted to surrender because he has finally found the person it was meant for.
“Will you come sit?” I ask her. “I want to keep you out here and give you the night, but Dr. Levin is going to appear from a hedge with a lecture if we try to be statues in the garden.”
“I’ll sit,” she laughs softly. “I’m very obedient when bribed with a blanket.”
“I can provide that.”
We move back along the flagstones at a slow pace. I keep my hand on the small of her back. She glances down at the ring every few steps as if checking to see if it remains. Each time she looks, her mouth curves. It feels like watching the sun rise.
Inside, I settle her on the terrace chaise and cover her legs. I pour water, and she drinks. She tests the ring in the light from the door and shakes her head again, smiling as if she still can’t quite believe it. I sit beside her and place my palm over her stomach with the lightest touch. She covers my hand with hers.
“This is our sanctuary,” I tell her. “Our home.”
She turns the ring once, then stills. “When do you want to tell Charlotte?”
“In the morning,” I reply. “If we tell her now, she will wake the entire house and plan a party that will break four municipal codes.”
Naomi snorts a laugh. “True.”
We sit in easy silence until her gaze finds mine, her eyes suddenly solemn.
“You said something ended.”
“I did.”
“Was it about Irina?” she asks cautiously.
“It was,” I acknowledge.
Her face tightens, then softens. “Do I want to know the details?”
“Not tonight,” I answer. “I will tell you because I will never keep the shape of my actions from you, but not tonight. Tonight belongs to this ring and to your yes. Tonight belongs to our garden.”
She nods with relief. “Thank you.”
I kiss her temple. “Thank you for saying yes.”
