Page 33 of The Dancer and the Grumpy Billionaire

“I have an idea,” she says.

“Oh?”

“Marry me.”

I almost laugh, the idea is so ludicrous, but I realize quickly that she is not making a joke.

“Your father would surely slit my throat,” I answer.

“Marriage is legal,” she says. “He cannot control me if I belong to another man.”

“You wouldn’t…belong to me,” I say. “You are not property, Gigi, even though others would have you believe so.”

“But to my father, I am. This is a language he speaks. We can get married, and I can show him the paperwork and maybe you pay him to leave me alone.”

“Like a dowry?” I laugh. “This is the twenty-first century. I won’tbuyyou, Gigi.”

“So, you still don’t want me,” she says, stepping away, out into the hallway. “You said you could not do this, that you were walking away. You meant it.”

None of this is a question.

“Idowant you,” I say. “I care for you. Perhaps I even love you or could love you. You are a good person, Gigi, and you don’t deserve the hand you’ve been dealt. You deserve good things.”

“Youare the good thing,” she says, emotion making her voice waver. “Youare the thing I deserve.”

I step toward her and take her in my arms again. “I don’t know what to do,” I admit.

Somehow, my lips find hers. It is soft and tentative at first, but then more urgent. Unfortunately, my body hurts too much to do much else and when I wince as her hands roam, she sighs and helps me to bed, helping me strip to my boxer briefs. Gingerly, I crawl into my bed, and she lies on her side, careful so that only her hand rests on my belly.

“I think you should marry me,” she says again, this time more firmly. “Tomorrow. I’ll stay here tonight, and we’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow morning to get the license. There is nothing anyone can do if we make it legal.”

“Gigi, are you in love? Because the last time I checked, we marry people we’re in love with.” I see the hurt on her face at the comment, but plow on anyway. “We hardly know each other, and I am not saying I couldn’t fall in love with you. It’s just that it’s hard to disentangle my actual romantic feelings from my intense desire to protect you and get you away from this mess.”

“So, this is just a savior thing for you?” she asks, sitting up and moving away from me, hugging her knees against her chest.

“No,” I say. “I care for you, or I wouldn’t give a shit about your situation.”

“You care enough to fuck me,” she says bitterly. “But not enough to marry me.”

“Gigi, we need to think this through,” I say. “Think rationally. Simply getting a piece of paper will do nothing. Look at what happened tonight.”

“I am thinking this through, I know whatIwant,” she mutters.

“Gigi,” I say harshly.

“I do not know what you want me to do,” she says, teary now. “I do not know what you want from me. I just want to be with you. I want to run away. You offered it, but then pulled it back. I am trying to think of a solution. Marry me. Just marry me and we can move on together.”

“And you’ll wake up to find me in our bed with my throat slit,” I say. “No one in your father’s network is going to just say,oh you’re married now? Have a nice life! No, they will view me as one more threat to your safety and they will eliminate me.Ifyour father ever agrees to let you marry, it will be to someone inhisnetwork, someonehecan control. Itwon’tbe to a Ukrainian who works for the United States government.”

Gigi sags back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling with an anguished look on her face. “Vasily, I am sosorrythis happened to you tonight.”

I wait to respond until she looks at me, until her eyes meet mine.

“I need you to know that none of this is your fault,” I say steadily. “None of it. This is the hand you have been dealt, and it is beyond unfair. But Icannotlive my life this way. I simply cannot. I have a job. I have a family back in New York – a family who lost people in the war. They should not have to lose me, too.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” I take a big breath in, cringing at the pain in my chest and back as I do, then slowly let it out. “I’m saying what I said at the restaurant. I just don’t see a future for us. I care for you. I like you. I think we could make each other happy under very different circumstances. But I have things to protect, and I just don’t see how this can work.”

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