When we wake up in the morning, the yard is blanketed with snow.
“White Christmas,” Kage murmurs, standing behind me at the living room window.
I’m wrapped in an afghan. His strong arms are wrapped around me. His chin rests on top of my head. I feel peaceful, safe, warm, and lucky.
No matter how strange our situation, some people never get even this much.
My neighbor on the other side is a woman in her seventies named Barbara who told me last year at her birthday party that she’d never been married because love was a bad risk.
She’s an accountant. Like David did, she has an affinity for things that can be relied on: treasury bonds, statistical tables, the second law of thermodynamics.
I asked him once how someone like him could’ve fallen in love with someone like me—intuitive, emotional, mathematically challenged—and he paused for a moment before saying darkly, “Even Achilles had a weakness.”
That was classic David. Brief and mysterious.
To this day, I’m not exactly sure what he meant.
Kage says, “I have something for you.”
My laugh is throaty. “I think I’ve already had that, sir. Twice last night and again this morning.”
“Not that.”
His voice is serious, so I turn and look up at him. The expression on his face is one I haven’t seen before. The tenderness I’ve seen, but there’s a hesitance, too. Like he’s worried how I’ll react to something.
“What is it?”
“Look and see. It’s in my pocket.”
I glance down at his gray sweats. The only bulge I see is right up in front. “You don’t have to play games to get me to grab that sucker.”
He sighs. “Just put your hand in my left pocket.”
Smiling up at him, I say, “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”
I snake my hand into his pocket, pretending to look for some treasure that obviously isn’t there, or I’d be able to see the outline of it through the fabric.
“A-hunting we shall go…let’s see, here’s a nice piece of lint.” Wrinkling my nose, I flick the link off my fingers and start digging again. “And here’s a very meaty sort of man part. What is that—a hip?”
“Lower,” he says, his voice soft.
Frowning at him, I delve all the way to the bottom of his pocket, until my fingers find something.
Something small, round, and metal.
My pulse thrumming along my nerve endings, I withdraw the object and hold it up. Then I stare at it with wide eyes, parted lips, and a profound sense of shock.
Kage takes the ring from me and slips it onto the third finger of my trembling left hand.
He murmurs, “It’s a Russian love knot. The three interlocking rings signify different aspects of devotion. White gold is soft. It molds to the hand, the way love molds two people together. Yellow gold is hard, the way true love is hard against anything that tries to break it. And rose gold is rare.” He looks deep into my eyes. “Like what we have between us.”
When I burst into tears, he looks mortified. “Oh shit. You hate it.”
I collapse against his chest and pound a fist weakly on his shoulder. I hope it’s his good one, but I’m too emotional to care.
He says gruffly, “I’m sorry. I’ll return it. It’s too soon.”
I speak through sobs. “Will you shut up? I’m happy!”
“Oh.” He pauses, then chuckles. “I’d hate to see you when you’re sad.”
I cry against his chest as he holds me, until I’m calm enough to lift my head and look at him.
When he sees my face, he teases gently, “Who knew such a pretty girl could be such an ugly crier?”
I swipe at my wet face, sniffling. “One more wisecrack, and I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“No, you won’t. You like me.”
“You’re okay. I guess.”
Chuckling again, he pulls me against his chest and tucks my head under his chin. Then he turns serious, exhaling a long, slow breath. He says softly, “It’s a promise ring, baby. My promise to you that I’m yours. But…”
When he hesitates, I lift my head and stare at him. A pang of terror tightens my stomach. “But what?”
He caresses my cheek, gently wiping away a stray tear with his thumb. “But it’s not an engagement ring, because we can never be married.”
I close my eyes, hoping he won’t be able to see the way he’s just stabbed me through the heart. “Because it’s not safe for me, right?”
“Because I’m not allowed.”
My eyes snap open. I stare up at his handsome face with furrowed brows. “Allowed? What do you mean?”
“I mean when I told you my life wasn’t my own, that includes decisions about things like if I marry. And who.”
Shocked, I push away from him and stand back, gaping at him in disbelief. “You’re joking.”
“No.”
His expression backs up the word. He looks like he’s attending his best friend’s funeral.
“So who decides for you?”
When he doesn’t answer and just stands there staring at me like someone died, I know.
With an unfolding sense of dread, I say slowly, “Your boss decides. Maxim Mogdonovich.”
His voice edged with misery, Kage says, “It never mattered before. I assumed I’d always be alone. The way I always have been. There was no possible version of my life I could have imagined that included something like this. Someone like you.”
Cold, hard reality dumps a bucket of freezing water on my head. The true scope of my situation becomes painfully clear.
I’m in love with a man who can’t have children.
Who can’t live with me.
Who can’t marry me.
Who might, in fact, one day be required to marry someone else.
And he’d have no choice in the matter.
He’d do it to honor his oath.
When I take a step back, Kage reaches out and grabs my wrist. He pulls me against his body, takes my face in his hands, and growls, “No matter what, I’ll always be yours. You’ll always be mine. That won’t change.”
“It will if you’re married to another woman! Or did you think I’d share?”
I try to twist away, but he keeps me against him, wrapping his strong arms around me and holding me tight. “He won’t find me a wife. He needs me as I am. Focused. Undistracted.”
“But he could, right?”
When Kage doesn’t respond, I have my answer.
My laugh is an ugly thing, choked and full of dark despair. “Right. He could decide any time that you should marry some mafia princess to form an alliance with her family. Isn’t that how arranged marriages usually go?”
I’m crying again. But these aren’t tears of happiness. These tears come from a place of rage. A place of pain. A place of total disappointment in myself that I allowed my heart to take demonic possession of my head and lead me into this awful situation.
If I could kick my own ass, I would.
“Let me go.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he does what I ask, opening his arms and releasing me. I pull away, walk halfway across the room, then stop and turn back.
“This is why you said you’d have to make me fall in love with you first, before I found out all your secrets, right? Because even if I could get past what you do for a living, you knew I wouldn’t be able to get past this.”
He remains silent. His chest rises and falls rapidly. His dark eyes burn.
“Well, congratulations. Your plan worked. And don’t you dare talk to me for the rest of the day, because I’m so mad at both of us, I could spit!”
His eyes flash. He takes a step forward, his gaze searing mine. “Are you saying you’re in love with me?”
Exasperated, I throw my hands in the air. “Are you kidding me? You’re looking for declarations of love right now? I’m about to chop off your head!”
Still advancing slowly, he says softly, “You are, aren’t you? You’re in love with me. Say it.”
I’m so mad, I start to shake. I’m still crying a little, too, but the tears have taken a back burner and now the rage is in the driver’s seat. Seething, I stare at him.
“You selfish, arrogant, son of a bitch.”
“Guilty. Say it.”
“Would I have agreed to any of this insanity if I wasn’t in love with you?”
His voice drops, becoming deadly soft. He’s still advancing. “Then say it. Tell me. I want to hear the words.”
“And I want to hear you groaning in pain when I smash a hammer onto all your toes, but we can’t always get what we want.”
I whirl around and stalk out of the living room, down the hall, and into my bedroom. Kage is right on my heels. I barge into the bathroom, intending to slam the door behind me and lock it, but he’s too close. He barges in with me, crowding me near the sink.
Infuriated that he won’t leave me alone to have a breakdown in private, I snatch my brush off the sink and brandish it at him.
“Don’t make me use this on you!”
It’s a ridiculous threat, partly because I have zero intention of smacking him with my hairbrush and partly because he’d probably just laugh at me if I did, but it makes him stop short.
He looks at the brush in my hand, then he looks back at me.
His voice comes out thick. “Maybe you should.”
Confused by the tone in his voice and the new, heated look in his eyes, I pause for a second. “Um…what?”
“Maybe you should punish me.”
When I get an idea of what he means and lift my brows in surprise, he nods.
Then he turns and walks to the open doorway, pulls his sweats down to the middle of his thighs, and raises his arms overhead, resting his forearms on the molding around the top of the doorframe.
Legs braced apart, back and ass bare, he looks over his shoulder and waits.
