I want everything to be perfect today.

Silver and gold balloons decorate Cage’s Manhattan duplex where I moved in with him after I graduated from college last winter. Birthday banners are hung in the long marble hallway, and the aroma of a Russian feast fills the air. We’ve strung bright white lights here in the living room, and they wink over the pile of gifts we’ve gathered for Igor Vasiliev, whose birthday we’re commemorating in our home, even though Cage’s associate turned sixty-eight a few days ago.

It’s been a crazy ten months for us. Not only did Cage come to Colorado Springs to sweep me off my feet by proposing to me, but then he met my parents and my older sister. Then we had a grand engagement party in my home town with my friends and relatives in attendance. A few months after that my college graduation rolled around. Cage actually booked the resort estate house, using it as a home base as he did business until my commencement ceremony, which he attended with my family.

He was really proud of me—just as proud as I was of him while he continued to come to terms with his past. I was with him all the way, and now we’ve made it.

I adjust a strand of white lights that decorates one of the many potted ficus trees in the sunny living room. My sister Lacey crosses her arms and surveys the results of our birthday decorating. Then she says, “Mr. Vasiliev better be worth all this fuss.”

“You’ll like him when you meet him,” I say. “He’s the last of a dying breed—an old-school gentleman.”

She quirks a smile at me, and I take in her light brown hair and blue eyes. She’s the spitting image of Mom, who wanders over from the neat piles of gifts she’s been arranging so they’ll appear just so. Mom and Lacey are wearing chic summer sheathes that Cage bought for them during their latest New York shopping spree—Mom’s dress white, Lacey’s pink.

Dad even comes over from across the room where he’s been staring out a floor-to-ceiling window at Central Park. He still can’t get over the view, even after so many visits. “Are you sure about these Russian birthday traditions, Karini? I’m not comfortable with the thought of some of the ones you told us about.”

Lacey laughs. “Like pulling Mr. Vasiliev’s ears according to the number of years he’s got behind him? I can’t say I’m looking forward to that either. It’s weirder than any American traditions we have.”

I hold back a laugh. If only they knew how, on my twenty-third birthday, Cage resurrected some kind of birthday spanking tradition we used to do in America. I checked online. It really used to be a thing.

It’s totally our thing now.

I shrug at the looming birthday ear-pulling question. “We might be able to skip that tradition, guys. After all, we’d like to steer clear of any international incidents.”

When my skin awakens with heat, I know that Cage has walked into the room behind me. He doesn’t say anything as he eases his hand to my slightly pooched belly.

Possessive. Loving. He’s already thinking of names for the little baby boy and girl who are on their ways into our lives. Roman and Tatiana (or Alec and Anya?) will be along for the ride when Cage and I get married at the end of the month as soon as the dream house Cage has been overseeing is finished. I didn’t want to be married anywhere else except in the new home that’ll hold and comfort our family for the rest of our lives.

“Hey, Cage,” Lacey says, perfectly at home with her uber-rich future brother-in-law. “Should we pull on Igor’s ears today or what? Evidently, that’s what Russians do to each other on their birthdays.”

Cage laughs. “We can leave that up to Igor. He’s big on traditions. That’s why he wanted to meet my family while he’s in town this time.”

He couldn’t have made my mom any happier by calling them “family.” I can tell that Dad and Lacey are totally on board, too. They accepted him pretty quickly, except for that first meeting when they put him through the wringer by asking him a million questions about the loads of women he used to date and how he got so rich.

Gauche but protective, but hey, he’s the first real boyfriend I’d ever brought home. The only boyfriend who’ll ever matter.

Right now they obviously sense that Cage would like some alone time with me before Igor arrives, and they mention something about checking out what Daphne the personal chef has cooking in the kitchen, then depart. Lacey, the joker, winks at me on her way out, but Cage doesn’t notice.

He keeps rubbing my belly, and I lean back into him, feeling the security of his hard body, resting my cheek against his strong arm.

“Good job with the decorations,” he says. “Igor’s going to be pleased.”

“You know I always do my best for you, baby.”

As he kisses the top of my head, my blood warms. I want him right now just as much as I always do, passionately, insanely. But when he reaches his other hand in front of me to show me a wrapped box, I have to put my need for him on hold.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Open it and see.”

I hate to break away from him to take the gift in my hand, but I’m curious, so I do. And after I turn around to find him grinning down at me with his blue eyes shining, I tear into the ribbon, then the wrapping, stripping everything down to a medium-sized black velvet box.

I slowly open it to find a diamond tiara nestled in velvet cloth, sparkling in the summer light from the windows.

“Cage,” I say breathlessly.

“It’s for our wedding day,” he says. “I know you already have your veil picked out to go with your dress, but I saw this, and it was begging for you.”

Just like I playfully beg for him during our nights together?

He takes the small crown out of its box, then slips it onto my head. I don’t have to see myself in a mirror to know that I’m beautiful, because I see that in Cage’s eyes. I always have.

“My gift,” he murmurs. “My queen.”

When he bends down to scoop me into his arms for a kiss, I melt. I cling to him during this lazy, loving assault of emotions. I feel as if we’re in the eye of our own storm, everything whirling around us as the chaos echoes inside of me, too, and when he deepens the kiss by stroking my tongue with his, I’m his erotic slave.

I’m his everything, even after he pulls away to look down into my eyes.

Fire…storms…us. He belongs to me and I belong to him, forever.

He runs his fingers down my neck, over my aching and swollen breast, then to my baby bump. With a naughty glance, he goes lower, skimming under my summer dress to my pussy.

I moan and bite my lip as he teases me there, awakening my clit and the pounding of my blood.

“There’s no time,” I whisper.

“There’s always time for me to take you into our bedroom for—”

The doorbell chimes, and the hot moment between us suspends in the air. We laugh at the timing, but it’s not as if there won’t be other opportunities.

I smack his hand away from me, and he chuckles. Then I slide the tiara off my head, not caring that’s it leaving my hair a mess. I’ll live.

I tuck the headdress into its box, saving it for our wedding day.

Igor is in high spirits, and he’s brought his wife, two children, and grandchildren with him. The kids immediately go for his pile of presents in the living room, inspecting them, politely guessing what could be inside.

As Igor’s family surrounds my own, laughing together, Cage, Igor, and I stand back and watch.

“Ah, family,” Igor says. “I cannot wait until you have your own children to join in festivities such as this.”

He smiles and looks at my baby bump, and Cage can’t help but to touch me there again. I look up at him to see the glowing affection in his eyes, and I almost lose track of where we are and who we’re with until the kids laugh gleefully at the sight of Daphne wheeling the massive birthday cake into the room on a linen-covered cart.

But Igor isn’t watching them. He’s watching us with a satisfied smile.

“I always knew the two of you would work things out,” he says.

He has no true idea. Cage never did lie to Igor about how I had to “take care of my sick mother” and how that resulted in our breakup. Instead, Cage told him something closer to the truth—that he had blown it with me and wanted me back.

And he sure got what he wanted.

“You know, Cage,” Igor continues as the kids surround the cake now, “meeting Karini was actually what convinced me that you could be trusted. She, as they say, was your ace in the hole.”

The air in the room seems to go still as something passes through Cage’s eyes. A memory of how dark things used to be for him, perhaps. But then he looks at me and his eyes are shining.

He slips his hand to the back of my head and gives me a kiss so tender that my knees go weak. Then he smiles down at me.

“Meeting Karini is what convinced me that I could be trusted, too,” he says so softly that I’m not even sure Igor hears it.

But I did, and that’s all that’s going to matter for the rest of our lives.