Page 161 of Merciless Desires

She strokes my chest. “I’ll say whatever you want me to say. My brothers died, and it destroyed my mother. She wasn’t the same. Then she killed herself. I won’t do that to your mother.” She kisses me, and it shocks me how she cares about Ma’s feelings, a woman she’s never met.

“I’m going to tell Eoghan to draw up a set of divorce papers.” Slipping off the bed, I put my briefs on, reality crushing me that Ana can’t sleep here. “I should have done it when she didn’t come home. I was lazy. I didn’t want to rock the boat with Sophie. Looking back, I screwed up. She’s older now and understands it. Had I done it…”

“You were holding out for hope. That’s not a bad thing.”

“I don’t think I ever loved Ginny, to be honest. We were messing around. She got pregnant. I did the honorable thing.”

“And now you’re trying to do the same thing with me. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t do it to Sophie.” Fear creeps back into her eyes.

“This time, it isn’t about doing the honorable thing. It’s about doing the best thing I can do, for Sophie and for me.”

CHAPTER 15

Darragh

Sophie’s crib is easier to put together the second time around. I remember more than I expect.

The room is painted a soft gray. Ana refused to let me paint it blue. Even though she’s settled in nicely over the last few weeks, I’m torn between wondering if she doesn’t want to be a bother, or if she still plans to sneak out of here in the middle of the night after the baby is born.

If she left, would she try to take the baby?

“It’s not even seven a.m.” Ana wanders into the guestroom right next to hers, which is now the nursery. She’s wearing a sexy off-the-shoulder white eyelet night gown I bought her one day on my way home from work.

To me, when she’s riding my cock with her tight wet cunt, her face lost in pleasure, head thrown back, the nightgown off one shoulder, exposing a breast with stiff nipple, she looks so unguarded, and not worrying I’m staring at a round stomach.

We devour each other like maniacs. I’ve never felt so alive.

I’m shirtless and in running shorts, working up a sweat. “I’d like to get much of this done before Sophie wakes up. I have to explain that you’re staying, that we—”

“No!” Ana waves and sinks into the rocking chair I moved in here a few days ago. “You said you needed to get your divorce.”

“Eoghan sent the divorce papers to her attorney in Zimbabwe. She signed them, and they are on their way back in an express envelope.”

“She signed them, no questions asked?” Ana looks pale. This is getting too real.

“She’s seeing someone, too.” I stand up to tighten the bolts on the top rail. “Don’t worry, Ana, I will not force you to marry me.” I toss the wrench back into the toolbox and kneel at her feet. “I won’t force anything on you. I won’t be like Cormac.”

Ana holds her chin, and her eyes tear up.

“What is it, my love?”

She stares at me, and I silently acknowledge how I’ve fallen for her. “I feel like I’m… I’m missing everything at home. Don’t you? Three of your brothers are now married and having babies. I’m choking without Katya.”

“She’s safe. I promise.”

I worry she’ll want to go back on her own before my brothers can have a sit down with her father. He’ll want retribution. He’ll want Cormac’s head. My family is ruthless and wears blood on their hands like champs, but they’re disciplined.

Unlike the Bratva.

“I know I said, I won’t force you to marry me. But if you decide you want to go home, just for a visit, I must insist we get married first, so I can bring you there as my wife. And present the baby as ours.”

She turns her head and stares out the window, the gray misty morning keeping the room shadowed as soft rain pelts the windows. “I don’t trust my father.”

“We’ll have to face that, eventually. I want us to be together. To raise this baby together. I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders. I don’t trust your father either. I wouldn’t put it past him to hurt Sophie.”

“She’s a child. He wouldn’t hurt a child.”

“You’re sure?” I narrow my eyes.

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