Page 76 of Sexting the Bratva Beast
He smiles. “Did you not hear me, Cartier? I’m never going anywhere without you. You’re stuck with me now, baby.”
“So, what is it then?” I suddenly feel hot and irritable, and I pull my sweater away from my neck to give myself some space to breathe.
“Cartier.” He raises himself onto one knee and produces a ring from thin air. “Will you marry me?”
I stare at the ring in his hand as if it’s a detonator.
Perhaps it is a detonator.
If I say yes, my world will be blown upside down. Even more upside down than it already is. And if I turn him down…
“You’re proposing?” My voice is small and distant.
“Yes. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Cartier. I love you. I’m in love with you. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
The ring catches the glow of the fairy lights and throws sparkles across the room. It’s a huge emerald, the largest stone I’ve ever seen in real life, apart from the pendant in the vault, surrounded by diamonds to create a star shape. It’s beautiful.
It’s also too much, because I realize now that this must’ve come from the family jewels.
“I can’t wear this ring, Andrej. It belongs in your family.”
“You are the only family I want, Cartier. If you say yes… This will belong as much to you as to anyone else.”
“What about your sister? Or Gianna?” I’m stalling, and I’m getting angry at the sound of my own voice, but I wasn’t expecting this, and I don’t know what I want.
“I don’t want to marry them, Cartier,” he says with a straight face before his smile breaks through, refusing to be contained. “I want to marry you.”
“To keep me safe.” Jeez, that’s one surefire way to ruin a marriage proposal.
“Not to keep you safe, although you know that I will. I love you. I loved you the first moment I saw you, and I fall deeper in love with you every day that we spend together.”
I smile then, as my chest expands to accommodate my erratically beating heart.
He’s still holding the ring. Still on one knee. And I’m vaguely aware that I haven’t moved or given him an answer.
“Do you love me, Cartier?”
Do I?
I’ve never been in love before. The only men I’ve ever fallen for have been the fictional kind, the Heathcliffs and the Mr. Darcys and the Romeos that exist inside my head. But deep down, I know that I don’t even need to consider my answer because Andrej Ivanov is my gravity. He’s the center of my universe. He’s the other half of my soul, the half that Greek legends would have us believe that we spend our lifetime searching for to make us complete.
But can I marry a killer?
I look at his eyes, and my body melts. “Yes, Andrej. Yes, I’m in love with you too.”
His smile turns me into a gooey puddle that I have to stick back together before I can reassemble my thoughts. “Is that a yes?” he asks.
“I…” My fingers itch towards the emerald-and-diamond ring. “I need time… My parents…”
“I understand, Cartier.” He takes my hand, flips it over, places the ring in my palm, and then closes my fingers around it. “I want you to keep it. Then, when you’re ready to wear it, I’ll have my answer.”
I stare at my hand, at the cold ring in my palm. “But what if?—”
“I’ll wait forever if that’s what it takes. There will never be anyone else for me, Cartier.”
Later that evening,when Andrej is outside patrolling the perimeter, I find my cell phone tucked away at the back of the drawer in the nightstand.
I stare at it until my eyes water, the engagement ring still in my other hand.
