“On fire? What are you talking about?”

He shrugs off his jacket and lazily hangs it on a chair, and then he loosens his tie and tears the first few buttons of his shirt, clearly eager to get rid of his clothes.

I try to shrug off my fear, looking at the TV anxiously. “The news said there was a fire at the fortress in Sorel-Tracy. They didn’t say how bad it was.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

A sudden suspicion hits me as he turns away.

But those fluttering butterfly feelings kick up in my chest when he faces me again and gives me that I’m-tired-but-I’m-happy-to-see-you smile. He walks around the couch and sits down next to me. His lips briefly press against the side of my head, and I catch a strange whiff.

Gasoline.

My insides feel like steel.

“How was your day?”

“Eh, you know. Usual shit.”

No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.

“You?”

I shrug again, still preoccupied with the TV.

His fingers graze my shoulder as the towel slips down, and I slide over his lap, linking my hands around his neck. The heat of his skin glows. I always get a strange feeling when I look into his eyes. Then he slides his touch across my back and a swooping sensation hits my stomach.

God, I’m falling for him, aren’t I?

Is it one sided?

I rest my head into the crook of his shoulder, watching the screen as it changes back to the news program. A marquee scrolls on the screen: SYMBOL OF BIKER POWER UP IN FLAMES.

“Holy shit!”

I try to stand from his lap as images of bright-orange flames surrounding my home burn on the dark screen. Jesus Christ.

“Good evening. Earlier tonight, a fire broke out at the gates of the notorious Sorel-Tracy fortress. Firemen are currently on site, fighting the fire. Reports indicate at least one casualty—”

“I need to leave.”

I stand up from the couch, ripping his hands from my waist. I pat my jeans. Where are my things? My wallet—

“No, you don’t.”

Johnny’s clipped voice sends a wave of fury crashing through me. I’ve listened to his fucking demands, even the most outrageous ones that I never thought I’d go through, but not this one.

I just can’t fucking do it.

I turn around, looking at him calmly seated on the couch.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, you’re not going anywhere.”

“Why is that?”

He grits his teeth.

“Because it’s been a long fucking night, and I’m tired.”

“I’ll go—you stay here.”

“No.”

I hate that fucking word.

Then Johnny stands up from the couch. I belly up to my fiancé, who towers over me, sending sparks through his unyielding gaze.

“I’d like to see you stop me.”

“Easy.”

His hands snap around my wrists and then suddenly I’m being dragged to the bedroom. My heels dig in the floor, but it’s so smooth that I fall down.

“What the fuck are you doing? Let me go!”

“I’m in no mood for this right now. I’m fucking exhausted.”

“My mother’s in there, you piece of shit!”

He yanks me upright so hard that I bounce off his chest. His body seethes with barely restrained energy. “I’m getting really tired of this name-calling shit. If you do it again, I’ll gag you.”

“You can’t just expect me to stay here while my home is in flames!”

“This is your home.”

“Do you care nothing for me?”

He softens, running one hand through his hair. “Baby, she’s fine. It looks like it was just the outside structure.”

“I know you had something to do with this!”

There it is, finally. Johnny gives me a black look as my voice rings down the hall.

“I had nothing to do with this.”

“That is bullshit!” I can see the lie right there in his eyes. “Let me go!”

“No. I’m going to be your husband in a week, Maya,” he says in an increasingly frustrated voice. “Seeing your family right now is way too dangerous. Stay the fuck out of it until this blows over.”

“She’s your family, too.”

There’s no fucking way he’ll keep me away.

Johnny’s frown becomes more pronounced. It’s as though he can smell the defiance blazing under my skin. He grips my arms and manhandles me into the bedroom, laughing as I twist in his hands and try to shove him back. My efforts to get him off amuse him.

“I’m worried about my mom, and the other people there who I’m close to.”

“I understand that.”

“Do you?”

I fall onto the bed as he pins me down, his body moving above mine. My heart hammers as his tie tickles my skin. I’ve met his mother briefly, but I still know nothing about his father, other than that we’re not supposed to talk about him.

He reaches across my body and opens the drawer to his nightstand, pulling out a shiny pair of handcuffs.

Oh no.

Then a grin tugs at his mouth as he slaps each handcuff around my wrists, and attaches them to the headboard. I yank on them, and he catches my wrist.

“You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Fuck, he’s right. The metal digs into my skin. Johnny’s bubble of laughter ignites a furious wave of heat in my chest. He sits up, straddling my waist.

“Are you seriously handcuffing me to prevent me from seeing my mother?”

The laughter dies on his face. “Maya, please just trust me on this. You can’t see your family. Not now. They just put one of my men in the hospital.”

“What happened?”

“They jumped him and beat the shit out of him.”

“Jesus. Is he all right?”

“He’s probably never going to walk again.”

I sink back into the sheets as all the energy drains from my body. Hell, you shouldn’t be surprised. Violence was a way of life back at the MC, but I always did my best to stay out of it. Now I’m in the thick of this madness.

How many other people are going to get maimed because of me?

A smooth feeling on my cheek makes me look into Johnny’s softened eyes. “Don’t do that. It’s not your fault.”

Is he right? Or did I condemn the people I care about just because I wanted a little bit of fun? Now it sounds like Johnny retaliated by setting the MC on fire, although the images only showed damage to the outside structure. They might be all okay.

Still, another voice says. That’s pretty fucking bad.

Unpleasant warmth heats up my cheeks, the skin on my eyelids, everywhere. The bed sinks as he lowers himself and kisses my nose.

“I caused it.”

“You didn’t do anything except try to have a good time. There’s no crime in that.”

And now my hands are stretched above my head, tied to his bedposts.

“If you’re going to blame someone, blame me.”

“If I did, I’d hate you so much that I’d never be able to look at you again.”

I can’t blame him anymore. There were so many things I could have done to avoid strife between the family and the MC. I could have just not fucked around with Johnny. I could have left town, but the thought of leaving him now rips me apart. It’s like one of those metal hooks in meat lockers, yanking hard right under my ribs. He started out as everything that I wanted and couldn’t have and he ended up being the only good thing in my life—the only man who ever cared about what I wanted. The painful part of it is that he would see the whole MC dead. There’s not a remorseful bone in his body, and a part of me is ashamed to admit I love him for that.

I love him, and it hurts. “Just fuck me.”

The grin falters on his face. “What?”

“Fuck me.”

I need to feel him inside me. That sweet release is the only thing that’ll make me feel better, but more than that—I need to feel pain.

Johnny’s face stretches with a primal smile, the one that makes my heart race as fear slowly raises a row of goose bumps over my skin. He digs his hand into my hair and I taste his breath before his teeth sink into my bottom lip.

“I need you.”

My stolen whisper drives him wild. He kisses me and rips himself away, and then he curls his fingers around the waistband of my jeans. They’re tight jeans and they pull on my skin, but he rips them off, rolling them all the way to my feet. Then he bends his head, smiling, and kisses my mound right through the thin fabric of my panties before sliding his hands down my body and taking them off, too.

Thoughts of the fire at home creep into my head and clench my teeth together, willing the thoughts out.

“Please, Johnny. No games. Just fuck me.”

He climbs back over the bed, still dressed as he snakes his hand behind my head. His heavy body presses into my chest as he seals his lips against mine, kissing me with a frenzy that seems brand new. I’m lightheaded when he sweeps his tongue across my bottom lip.

“I fucking need you, too.”

The space between my legs clenches hard when he hisses in my ear, and then he rolls up the bottom of my shirt, sliding up my bra so that both of them act as a blindfold over my eyes. My gasp hits the air when his warm tongue suddenly licks across my nipple, making it contract. Then his mouth descends over it and he sucks hard. I can’t see him, so every movement he makes sends a shock to my pussy, as if his fingers pinched my clit.

Just fuck me, already.

But I love feeling his mouth on my tits, the wetness suddenly hitting the sensitive flesh.

“Please.”

His groan hits my stomach and I flutter as he kisses right below my ribs. “I can’t control myself when you beg like that, baby.”

The sound of his belt loosening from his slacks is another throb to my pussy. My mouth waters and I strain against the handcuffs. I want to feel his muscles gliding under my hands. The fabric slithers from his hips and drops to the floor, and my heart pounds as his weight makes the mattress bounce.

His hands touch my legs, and he guides them around his waist, and suddenly something hard shoves inside my pussy. A male sigh slides over my ears as he painfully shoves through me, my legs riding up as he sinks into me.

I can’t see shit, but I don’t need to when he fucks me this hard. The chains rattle and I can hear the sounds his cock makes as it slides, and that thrilling noise Johnny makes when he buries himself completely. His breathing rises to a crescendo, and so do the slapping, wet sounds. He thrusts hard, letting out primal grunts as I tighten around him. It feels so fucking amazing—he always makes me feel so amazing.

His hips thrust into me, driving his cock deep as his face nuzzles in my neck. Warm breath billows over my skin as desperate sighs break out from his lips. He holds me tight as he rams deep. It hurts me, but I need the pain. I need him gasping into me as he fucks himself into exhaustion. He silences my moans with his mouth, groaning into my lips as he pounds me hard. Then he comes. I feel his cock jumping inside me and the torrent of warmth as he lets out a long, drawn-out groan, followed by desperate breaths. His lips seal against me and I feel his fingers rolling up the t-shirt so that I can see his flushed face.

My legs tighten around his waist as he reaches down and pinches my clit, pulsing his length so that I can get off, too. Within seconds I scream, wishing that I could claw his back as my pussy contracts over his cock. The tightness in my chest finally loosens as I lie there with Johnny’s body over mine, still buried deep inside me.

It’s the best feeling in the world.

* * *

The TV hums and flickers to life, blowing up a huge display of smoldering metal and yellow firefighters walking in the background.

“Good afternoon. This is Michelle Fox reporting live from Sorel-Tracy where last night, a tanker truck filled with explosives crashed into the gates of the notorious Sorel-Tracy fortress. Police recovered one body from the fire and suspect—”

Blood pounds in my ears, drowning out the rest as the camera pans over the wreckage of the blackened truck. A truck full of explosives? And they found a body.

This has Johnny Cravotta written all over it.

Then an intense heat grips my heart as rage sears through my veins, and then I shut the TV off. How fucking dare he? He came home—he knew exactly what happened and lied to my face, and then he prevented me from seeing my own mother.

Don’t act so surprised. You knew what he did.

I grab my phone from my purse and call her number, my hand shaking as I hold it to my ear. I haven’t spoken to her since the engagement party.

“Hello?”

“Mom, it’s me. Are you okay?”

“We’re at the hospital right now.” A whimper crackles through the speaker. “Waiting for Julien’s fiancée. He’s dead.”

Oh my God.

Julien. The newly patched member, who I actually liked. I imagine him faceup on a gurney with hollowed cheeks, and a violent feeling rushes up my throat.

“What the hell happened?”

“What the hell do you think happened? Your fiancé killed one of our own and sent his body back to us.”

The air leaves my chest. “He—he wouldn’t do that.”

“Of course he fucking would!”

Her scream rings in my ears as two tears slip down my face. She’s right, he would. Especially after one of his guys was put into the hospital.

“Listen, I’m coming to see you,” I say as I walk around the apartment, gathering my shit.

“Maya, stay where you are. Your father is—”

“I don’t give a shit.”

I hang up the phone and glance around the empty apartment guiltily, as if Johnny’s somewhere out of sight.

It’ll just be a quick trip. There and back. I’ll get to see my mother, and Johnny will never find out.

* * *

A cold, air-conditioned breeze cycles through the building, making me bury my hands under my arms. My heart beats a violent tattoo as I spot the crowd of leather-clad men lounging in the chairs outside the ICU. A few of them look up as I approach. One of them nudges Dad’s shoulder and he looks up from his chair. Mom freezes on his lap when her eyes pass over me.

A dozen pairs of hostile eyes focus on me as I slowly edge into the room, feeling so awkward that I wish I could vanish on the spot.

Dad strides toward me with Mom hot on his heels. “Carlos!”

My stomach clenches at the furious, hateful look he throws at me, and then he actually lunges at me. I cross my arms, protecting my face as Mom screams at him.

“Stop it!”

My back slams against the wall and his yellowed teeth snarl in my face. “You did this, you stupid slut. You fucking killed him!”

I feel my skin burn as though he slapped me.

“What happened?”

“They burned him. His fiancée can’t even do an open-casket funeral—that son of a bitch!”

I hear his words like a series of physical wounds. One after the other.

“But y-you hurt one of his men.”

“What the fuck did you say to me?”

“You badly hurt one of his men. What did you think he was going to do?”

He grits his teeth and then slowly pulls his lips into a gruesome smile. “You can suck his cock all you want. You’re dead to me.”

Mom shoves his chest as he points a finger in my face, and I tremble as I listen to him denounce me in front of everyone I know. My cousins—my uncles.

“I hope you have a miscarriage. No!” he screams, turning to my mom. “She’s one of them now!”

“What the fuck is your problem with Italians?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he spits.

“I do. You’re just a dumb redneck—”

He shakes his head, laughing, and then something strange shines in his eyes. Something that almost looks like pity. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Italians have been ruining our lives for decades—controlling our drugs, extorting local businesses, making this city’s infrastructure a shit-hole. At least we don’t fuck with civilians. They kill people and they don’t give a damn. That’s what you’ve chosen, little Maya. You chose a rotten man—”

Even though my heart pounds so fast, I can still hear myself barely whisper, “He’s been good to me.”

“He killed his own father to become boss. Did he tell you that?” All the blood pools to my feet as Dad smiles humorlessly. “No, of course not.”

“Dad, I—”

“I would have set you up with a nice life. Any one of the guys in the MC would’ve treated you well, but instead you chose this piece-of-shit man who will throw you out the moment you’re used up.”

Then his eyes glance behind me and I turn instinctively, right into someone’s chest. He grabs my arms and I try to jump away, but it’s only Johnny, whose face is stony.

“Carlos, I’d appreciate it if you stopped sending your guys after my men. Things could get a bit—hot.”

Jesus.

“You fucking cocksucker!”

One of his men slams Dad’s chest as he drags my father, who only has eyes for Johnny.

“Take it easy,” he hisses in my dad’s ear.

Johnny watches him and mutters under his breath. “Yeah, take it easy, criss de tabarnak.”

I barely feel his arm curling over my shoulder, and I don’t fight back when he turns me around. I feel Johnny’s burning heat right through my skin. His anger pounds through his feet. His fingers scratch me through the thin t-shirt I’m wearing.

He’s fucking pissed that I came here. Well so the fuck am I. He lied to me.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I keep tabs on you.” His voice is tight.

“Oh, so now you don’t trust me?” I yank my arm out of his grip and Johnny’s eyebrows rise.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You’re a lying, cold bastard.”

He lunges at me, and I’m so surprised at the pain crushing my arm that tears spring to my eyes. We’re standing in the middle of a busy hallway, but he doesn’t give a shit.

“I don’t want to hear this shit right now. You came here when I told you not to—I told you it was dangerous.”

“She’s my mother! What did you expect me to do?”

“I expect you to be smart.”

The vicious burn seethes in my chest as he pulls me down the hall, and I’m bursting to scream at him. How dare he admonish me?

He stops suddenly when we go outside and I bump into his back, swearing. Johnny gives me an icy look.

“I don’t want to hear a goddamn word from you while we’re in the car. I’m serious. It could be bugged.”

This time he leads me to his car, hardly sparing me a backward glance as he walks across the parking lot. My head still pounds with everything my dad said, and he opens the car door for me. I pause and think of what a mess I’ve made with my life.

“Get in.”

The car ride is tense and my fists clench whenever he takes a sharp turn, or puts his foot on the gas, flooring it. I dare to glance at him and immediately regret it. His whole face burns red, but he stares straight ahead.

“I can’t fucking wait—”

“Maya, don’t—”

“You lied to me about everything.”

I feel so fucking stupid. The things my father said chilled me to the bone, and I can’t pretend that I’m not really fucking worried that he’s exactly what Dad said he was.

Julien is gone, and they actually strapped his body to the windshield and lit it on fire. God. I can’t even imagine.

“Wait ’til we get home.”

“No. Let’s talk about this now.”

“Fuck!”

He slams the brakes in the middle of the street and the car grinds to a halt. I feel my insides lurch as he stops the car, smoke billowing around the tires. My hands slip against the leather, chest pulsing as I realize we’ve come to a full stop.

“Maya, please fucking wait until we get home.”

I’ll wait ’til we get home, and then the gloves are coming off.

He parks the car and slams the door, but I get out before he can reach my side. Fuck him.

I march past him, hardly giving him a glance, and he catches my arm, pulling me to his side effortlessly.

“What the hell?”

“Don’t treat me like a jerk-off, Maya. I don’t care how pissed you are with me.”

And then that bastard plants a soft kiss over my lips, and it’s so sweet that it almost distracts me from my anger. It makes me cling to him a little bit longer when I just want to smack the smile off his fucking face. Then I remember how pissed I’m supposed to be, and I rip away from his side. His chuckle raises my hackles and I stalk into the elevator, pounding the button so I don’t have to look at his face.

As soon as the door closes, Johnny tries to pull me in his arms. “Hey.”

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

I slap his hands away and stare into the mirror, watching his deepening frown.

“You lied to me.”

He approaches me close enough to hiss in my ear. “If I didn’t, you would have headed for that fucking place and gotten yourself killed.”

“You killed Julien and he was just a kid. Barely younger than me—”

“That kid was the part of the crew that bashed Michael’s fucking brain in. My soldier captured him, and we killed him. An eye for an eye.”

The fucking indifference.

“So they hurt one of you, and you react by killing one of them and setting his body on fire?”

“Yes,” he says, deadpan.

He looks like nothing in the world could possibly be wrong with that. The elevator pings and he exits first. I trail after him as he unlocks the door.

“I have a question for you: how fucked up are you?”

I’m marrying a fucking monster.

He grabs my arm with a frustrated sigh and yanks me inside the apartment, slamming the door shut. Then he locks the door and I stumble backward, startled from the noise.

“I’m not a monster, Maya.”

“You strapped him to that car—and you burned him.”

That pretty much makes you one.

“He was already dead.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He pins me against the wall with his eyes, which are shrouded in the darkness of his apartment. “There’s nothing wrong with a man trying to defend his family.”

“What family?”

“You, goddamn it!”

My back hits the wall sharply as he starts forward, grabbing my shoulders. The emotion twisting his face stuns me into silence.

“I’ll do anything—kill anyone to keep my family safe.”

“That kid—”

“—was a fucking degenerate, just like the rest of them. He knew what he was signing up for. What, I’m supposed to roll over and let them fuck me in the ass?”

Tears build up behind my eyes, and I don’t know why. I know he’s right. There are all these feelings burgeoning inside me, and I don’t know where they’re coming from. Maybe it’s just that I’m having a fucking baby with this man—this beast of a man who can’t even tell me anything real about himself.

“My dad told me things.”

His hands slide up my shoulders, disappearing around my neck. “I’m sure he did.”

The dismissive tone makes me fire back.

“He said you killed your father to become boss!”

I expect him to pull back in disgust.

I expect him to deny it.

A smile staggers across his face.

“Yeah, I did.”

Oh God.

“And I’d do it again, and again—and again. That miserable prick had it coming.”

“Oh my God.”

He cups my face, but I worm away from him, backing into the pitch-black living room. He won’t let me go. Swift hands wind around my waist and pull me closer, right up against his chest where I can feel his heart beating.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“I don’t know how to look at you anymore. You’re not the man I thought you were.”

“I’m the same man you met in that bar, hon. I’m just—more.”

My hands are pinned against his chest, and I can barely draw in breath. Soft eyes look down at me.

“You won’t tell me anything about yourself.”

“That’s not true.”

“You killed your own father to get ahead. Why?”

His body leaves my side as a shadow descends over him like a shroud. “That’s not exactly what happened.”

Johnny walks away from me, looking back as though he expects me to follow, and I do. I follow him all the way into his study, where he walks behind his desk and opens a drawer, fishing out a dusty picture frame. He blows air over the glass and hands it to me.

“That’s me and my dad.”

An older, balding man with vague good looks throws an arm around a small boy with dark hair and eyes. The same eyes staring at me right now.

“I told you he was in the life with me. He groomed me, you know? Raised me in the mob so that one day I could take his position after he retired.”

“Did you get along?”

He smiles. “Yeah. I worshipped my dad. To me, he was a goddamn hero.”

How the fuck do you go from there to killing your dad?

The smile disappears. “The problems came in my midtwenties, when I started making millions of dollars for the family a month. I surpassed all the captains—surpassed him. At the time, my dad was a capo and I worked under him. I was getting a lot of attention in the papers for how successful I was. Basically, I was getting too big, too fast.”

The pain tightening his voice makes me want to reach out to him, even though I don’t even know what happened.

“They pulled me in for a meeting and everyone was there. They asked me all kinds of questions and my dad said nothing to defend me. I think they were nervous about me. Young kid, lots of money—I could have made stupid decisions and gotten the family under fire. Anyway, I left that meeting knowing that my time was limited. Sooner or later, one of them was going to pop me.”

Then his whole face clouds over. “I just didn’t expect it from my own father.”

Oh my God.

“Several of them ordered hits on me, including him.”

“Jesus.”

Johnny looks tired as he walks to the couch and sits down, his head in his hands. My heart clenches in my chest at the sight of him in pain. I sit down next to him and touch his thigh.

“How did you—”

He lifts his head and snaps at me. “I found him and blew out his fucking brains. Then I gave the boss a choice. He could resign or me and my crew would pick them off, one by one. He resigned.”

“I’m so sorry.”

I can see Johnny still fighting to swallow down the pain of his father—his hero—betraying him. He lifts his head.

“Karen left me right after that. She didn’t want to be with me anymore. It was too much for her.”

Is it too much for me? Something about the way he looks at me says that he doesn’t give a fuck. His hand slides over mine, still resting on his thigh.

“I’m sorry for what I said—”

“Maybe I am a monster,” he says, turning around to look at me. “But I don’t give a fuck if I am.”

I squeeze his hand. “I can handle it, Johnny.”

“I know,” he says with a smile, sliding his arm behind my back and dragging me into his arms. “That’s why you came to me in that bar. You wanted to fuck around with a wise guy.”

His smile intoxicates me, more powerful than booze or drugs. It slowly weakens me and an explosive spark ignites somewhere inside me when he bends his head and kisses me. I kiss back, yielding to his soft pressure. Shit, I already want him. I slide my hand around his neck, loving how warm he is. He pulls back, just hovering over my lips.

“I’m crazy about you, Maya. I think if I don’t fuck you every single day for the rest of my life, I’ll go insane.”

For the rest of my life.

“You always get me so fucking hard, baby.”

He gently nips at my collarbone as desire floods my veins like strong liquor. “If we get married, will you ease up on the MC?”

“If? You mean, when. We’re getting married, Maya,” he ends with a rough edge in his voice.

“I could change my mind,” I say in a dry voice, although it’s hardly a threat.

He smiles as though I’ve said a cute joke. “You’re not going to change your mind. Like I said, you need me, and I’m not letting you go anyway.”

* * *

A question trembles on my lips.

A question I can’t fucking ask while I’m wearing a wedding dress.

I always assumed I would marry for love, not for politics. Not because I got knocked up. There are so many unanswered questions between us, but I still say “I do” when our vows are read. His head bows and catches my lips, and I try to kiss him back, but the roar of the crowd distracts me. And then all of a sudden, just like that, I’m married. He grips my hand and we walk down the aisle in a shower of lavender petals. I move slowly in the dress his mother helped me pick out, my legs shaking so hard that if it weren’t for him holding my hand, I would have collapsed. We make it to the limousine waiting outside the Catholic church, and then I finally have a few moments of blessed silence.

My husband slides into the limousine and shuts the door, giving me a mildly amused look.

This is fucking real. We’re married. He’s my husband. That’s it. I’m bound to him for life.

It terrifies me. Did I make a mistake?

“Maya, you look beautiful in that dress.”

It takes me a second to appreciate what he said, and a weak smile pulls at my lips. He looks mouthwatering himself. He wears some kind of dark-gray designer suit that I’ve never seen before, but it’s probably expensive enough to pay for a dozen of his regular suits. It fits him perfectly. The fabric glides over his lean muscles and tightens around his legs when he sits down. A smile breaks his handsome face.

“What, are you shy now?”

My heart beats in my throat as I stare at him. I want to ask him. I need to ask him.

But I’m afraid of the answer.

“Do you love me?”

His eyes widen slightly and he sucks in breath, looking stunned at my question. It hangs between us, making the air thin.

“You said, in the beginning, not to expect anything, but I can’t.”

I can’t because I’m in love with him. The thought of him not feeling the same for me twists a knife in my guts. Then I see the hesitation on his face and I know that my worst fears have come true.

The fucking man I married doesn’t love me.

“Maya—”

“I love you!”

My hands shake as a pained look crosses his face. It’s that look that absolutely kills me. Like a dagger to the heart.

“I love being with you. I love fucking you—”

“—but you’re not in love with me,” I finish, my throat already thick with tears.

God, it fucking hurts. It’s not his fault. Hell, he made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t going to have feelings for me, but it still hurts.

He touches my face. “Maya, I can’t promise you to be everything you want me to be, but you’ll have me forever. I’ll be a good father to our kids.”

A thrill shoots up my chest. Kids?

Then a wry smirk makes my heart flip. “You didn’t think I’d stop at one, did you?”

He gathers me in his arms, almost crushing me with the force of his embrace. “I’ll be good to you, Maya.” His palm instinctively smooths over my womb as he plants a kiss on my head. “You’re my wife, now. You’re the most important person in my life.”

Just believe him.

I do believe him.