Page 58 of Caged in Desire
Continuing, I keep my voice even, having learned from my father at a very young age that men aren’t threatened by yelling as much as they are by control.
“She is happy,weare happy, and this prison you kept her in, even with good intentions, is no longer her home. My home is her home, and she will blossom there. This gilded cage will be nomore than a memory soon, and although I allow her unlimited access to Sasha because she loves him like a brother, if I catch so much as a hint of you all sniffing around ways to get her back, it all stops. Do you understand? It. All. Stops.
“She is mine. No one will take her from me while I breathe. I categorically deny every. Single. One. Of your pathetic attempts to undermine our union. We have everything in common, we bring out the best in each other, and I’ll make her so happy every day that I live that she’ll be sustained by my love well after I’m gone. I’ll know immediately if you or anyone from your team tries to contact her. If you have business to conduct with her, you can reach me via my lawyer.”
Forgoing any sort of goodbye, I turn and stride quickly from the office to the adjacent sitting area, where Katarina sits reading a book. Her face is twisted with concern, and I know she can see every bit of my distress.
“Henry, what…?” She begins to ask, but I shake my head, picking her up to wrap her legs around my waist and carry her to the waiting car.
Smelling her hair, I feel my heart rate start to slow, but every nerve fiber still feels soaked in adrenaline.
“Plane,” I whisper. “Everything is fine, I promise. Just. Let’s get in the air. Please.”
She clutches me tighter and clings to me even in the car. The drive to the airfield is blessedly short, and before I know it, we’re high enough in the air to be cleared to move about the cabin.
Immediately, I stand, pacing with my hands on the back of my head. Instead of time and distance from the Taranov compound making me calmer, they’ve had the opposite effect, allowing me to perseverate on the fact that thatassholeeven had the thought to take my wife. Let alone speak it out loud to my fucking face.
“Henry?” Katarina’s soft voice brings me back to the present, and I realize I’m behaving like a beast, growling and thrashingabout. The last thing I want to do is scare her. Walking back to her seat, I kneel on both knees in front of her and put my head in her lap. Immediately, her fingers start to play with my hair and scratch at my scalp, and I feel some of my tension untwine itself from my spine.
Taking a deep breath, I stay between her legs but lift my head enough to look into her eyes. She’s wearing one of her custom periwinkle designs from my sister, a cashmere travel set that makes her beautiful violet eyes pop.Fuck, I hope our girls get those eyes.
“He wanted…” I hear my voice crack with emotion for the second time today. Clearing my throat, I try again.
“He wanted you back,” I whisper. “He wanted you back, but he can’t have you back, Katarina. You’re mine.”
Her soft smile is free of judgment, and I bask in it.
“I know. I heard,” she says, without any trace of guilt in her voice at eavesdropping.
Chuckling, I take her left hand and kiss the pad of each finger before repeating myself on the right.
“Iknewthere was no way you wouldn’t be listening to that meeting. What was your trick? A loose floorboard that allowed sound to travel underneath? A secret room in the broom closet next to the office?”
That earns me a small laugh along with a shake of her head.
“Nothing that fancy. Old-fashioned ear to the door. Works more often than you’d think,” she says, voice tapering off at the end. “Henry, you said…”
Keeping my gaze locked onto hers, I make myself as transparent as possible in the hope that she’ll be able to see directly into my heart. If she does, she’ll find herself looking into a mirror.It’s all her.
“I said a lot of things, Katarina, and I meant every single one of them. None more so than the fact that I love you.I love you. I love you.”
I find it hard to stop saying it once I start, especially considering the tears from her eyes. I wipe them away with my thumbs before cradling her face and pressing the softest kiss to her lips, then pulling back to look at her once more.
“I meant it all, Mrs. Sinclair. As harsh and murderous and psychotic as it sounded, multiply that by a hundred and it won’t touch the truth of it.I burn for you.Iwouldburn for you. Anyone. Anything. Any entity who dares to utter the meresuggestionthat you won’t be mine for eternity will not meet the same benevolence as I just bestowed upon your uncle. Your family, my family, nobody on earth would be spared if they took you from me.”
Even in the midst of my admission of exactly how far I would go to hoard her to myself like a dragon over his treasure, she looks at me with adoration and, I hope, with love. She’s not shrinking away from me at all, but rather leaning into my hands.My perfect girl.
“I’m never letting you go, Katarina. Not even if you asked. I would follow you to the ends of the world and bring you home. Mywife. Mine.We’re going back home, back to being happy, and I’m going to take care of you forever. You’re going to havemybabies, and we’re going to fill our house with so much joy, Kitten. I promise you, you’ll never need or want for anything.”
She’s crying now, but her smile is huge as she launches herself at me, almost knocking me backward off my knees with the force of her exuberance. After she’s tried to crush me with her hug, she pulls back to kiss me, then looks in my eyes.
“I love you too, Henry.”
And that’s all I need.Forever, that’s all I’ll need.Continuing to murmur into her ear as we make our descent, I refuse to lether go when the stewardess tells us to take our own seats. If the landing is bumpy, I’ll just hold her extra tight. Eventually, I know I’ll have to physically let her go. She’ll need the bathroom, or she’ll want a girls’ night with her sisters-in-law. For the foreseeable future, though, I have no plans to unhand her.
Her uncle, the stewardess, anyone who wants me to let go can fuck right off.
Mine.
