Page 56 of Frozen Heart

“That’s for making me think you’d been secretly seeing him for months and not telling me.” She poked me on the other side. “That’s for not telling me the truth.”

“Ow, okay!”

She threw her arms around me and hugged me tight. “And this is me telling you to be careful.”

The tension between us evaporated and I felt the crack in our friendship heal. I nodded against her shoulder and squeezed her back hard.

By the time Radimir and I got back to the penthouse, it was almost four in the morning. I stumbled through the door, exhausted and shaky. Before that night, I’d never even seen a gun in real life. Now I was a target, because of who I was marrying.

“I’m not ready for this life,” I thought. Only I was so tired, I mumbled it out loud.

Radimir turned to me. He’d been quiet ever since we left the bar, scowling and brooding, and now that we were alone, I could see the anger he’d been bottling up. “I know,” he whispered, putting his hands on my shoulders. “I know you’re not. I’m sorry.”

Sorry?!“You saved me!”

A curt little shake of his head. “I’m the reason you were in danger.”

I studied his face. This wasn’t the cold rage that had been in his eyes when he killed the Armenians. This was dark and poisonous...and turned inward.No! It wasn’t your fault!I put a hand on that big, broad chest but he looked away.

“What do you need?” he asked stiffly. “How can I make you feel better? Do you need sleep? A drink?”

I was too tired and freaked out to think straight, but my mind was spinning too fast for sleep. “Could you just...hold me?” I asked, my voice quavering.

He closed his eyes for a second and he seemed to crumple, as if I’d slipped a knife through a crack in his armor. He nodded and scooped me up. For once, I didn’t complain.

He carried me over to the couch and sat down, cradling me to his chest. I closed my eyes and he stroked my hair, whispering softly in Russian until I fell asleep.

38

RADIMIR

It’s alright.Everything is going to be okay. I’ll take care of you.I whispered the words over and over until her breathing slowed and she fell asleep. And then I kept whispering them into the silent room, as if trying to convince myself. But it was a lie.

Everything was notalright. It was notgoing to be okay. And I wasn’t sure I could take care of her.

I sat there glaring into the darkness. The anger had returned, boiling up inside me, burning through all the ice that keeps everything locked down. I was furious, not just at myself but at—I looked around the penthouse—at all of it, at the Bratva, at my whole world. It had nearly killed her and for that, I wanted to rip it all down.

But the anger was just the emotion that escaped, like lava that bubbles up to the surface. It was coming from somewhere down deep, a hot, burning core that had been growing for weeks, that got denser and hotter every time I tried to crush it down. The horror of nearly losing her made me finally face up to it...

I was in love with her.

The hand stroking her hair stiffened into a claw.Chyort! How did this happen?

But I knew how. Because she was funny andvoskhititel'nyy—adorable—and a shy librarian but a moaning, thrashing minx when I got between her thighs and because she wasgood,and she reminded me that the world could be good. She made me…

Happy. A few months ago, I hadn’t thought it was possible to be happy.

I stared down at her sleeping face.Now what?I’d admitted it to myself. But could I tell her?ShouldI tell her? I thought back to the night I killed Borislav, the way she’d recoiled from me.Don’t touch me!She’d hated me. What if she still felt the same way?

Feeling these things for my supposed-fake fiancée was hard enough. If she rejected me...I wasn’t sure I could take that.

I scowled down at her.Damn you, woman.She made me happy. But she also made me vulnerable.

39

BRONWYN

The next morning—theday before the wedding—I woke with the world’s worst hangover, a blue and purple bruise on my cheek and a swollen lip. Radimir insisted I wasn’t going to work. I immediately dug in because being closed for the day was going to make my already tiny profits even smaller, and we eventually compromised and said I’d open the store after lunch, but only if he drove me there and back. While I was working, he and his brothers would run the rest of the Armenians out of town.