Page 28 of His Disobedient Bride

His face looked serious and my stomach clenched with nervousness.

“What’s wrong?” I cried.

I was on edge. I had seen Andrei and his men come back from what I guessed was some violent revenge that I didn’t want to know about. And I had even been in the garden when they had come back, the front of Andrei’s white shirt speckled with so much blood that I could see it even from the garden. I had felt sick to my stomach.

“I think we should get married,” said Frederik, and I felt my stomach plummet through my knees to the floor. “I know it is probably not how you imagined getting married,” he continued. “But it is the best way to keep you safe in the Bratva.”

I hesitated, nerves twisting like a ball in my stomach. My mouth felt so dry that I didn’t know if I could speak.

He was right that I didn’t imagine getting married this way. Because I honestly never imagined I’d ever get married.

I knew Frederik didn’t want to marry me. He was doing it out of a sense of obligation. I still felt a wild, secret, illicit thrill of pleasure.

I would be someone’s wife.

“OK,” I said, then realized I had croaked. “OK, I’ll marry you.”

“Let’s go tell Grigoriy,” he said.

We headed in to see the Pakhan. He was in a meeting room with Andrei and Dmitri, the windows wide open to catch the sweet summer breeze and the scents of the ocean. It seemed such an incongruous smell to be associated with a dangerous, bloody Bratva. Cerise had just brought their tea things in, balancing cups and sugar and cream with her round, tanned arms, and I saw Andrei turn around to look at her with his hard eyes. They were hard but they gleamed with a sharp fire when they looked at her.

I suddenly wondered what it would be like for Frederik to look at me with those eyes.

But I knew he wasn’t marrying me out of love. He was marrying me because he was a good man who was trying to protect me. He had mentioned that this wasn’t how I pictured getting married, but maybe it wasn’t how he pictured getting married again either. I looked over at him nervously, but he wasn’t looking at me. I felt my stomach twist in a ball of nerves.

I saw Frederik’s throat move.

The room was very quiet as they waited for him to speak, and I felt a sudden strange pride that he was so respected that even a killer like Andrei would listen to him.

“I am going to make Mary my wife,” he said.

I saw the Pakhan’s eyes widen curiously. Dmitri’s expression didn’t change, but Andrei’s mouth tightened into a harsh line.

Andrei had the ability to suck the air out of the room, and he was looking at Frederik with those intense blue eyes, boring into his uncle’s.

“And why this sudden interest in her?” asked Andrei coldly.

I was afraid for a second that Frederik was going to back down. But then I saw a quick, assured glance from Cerise, and I knew that she had been the one behind it.

“I’ve claimed her,” Frederik said. “I want her to be mine. She’s not a threat. She will only be an asset to the family.”

He crossed his arms and met Andrei’s eyes. I felt a sudden thrill go through me at the sight of Frederik’s tall, lean body standing beside me, making my skin prickle with his proximity. Andrei’s eyes narrowed, but Frederik’s did too, the two men watching each other warily.

The silence stretched on for long, painful seconds until I felt the tension twang and vibrate in me.

“Enough of this,” said Grigoriy. “Enough attention has already been paid to one tourist. You will marry her, Frederik.”

He handed over a paper and Frederik scribbled a signature on it.

Andrei flicked those predator’s blue eyes between his father and Frederik.

His father folded the piece of paper in his pocket.

“It is done, Andrei. The wedding will take place this weekend. Let’s hear no more about it.”

20

MARY

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