15. Viviana

I'm still half-asleep, but my heart is racing.

Someone is in here with me.

The room is dark and I'm too terrified to move, but I know someone is in this room. Mikhail's room, I remind myself. In Mikhail's house. I'm safe here.

I repeat the words to myself, but I don't even know if that's true. I'm not sure I'm safe anywhere anymore.

I stare up at the ceiling, afraid to breathe in case the person realizes I'm awake and lunges for me. Maybe if I pretend I'm asleep, they'll leave.

A floorboard near the bed creaks just as a figure appears over the mound of blankets around my head, looking down at me.

"Holy shit!" I gasp, both in utter terror and deep, palpable relief. "You scared me."

"I wasn't trying to," Mikhail replies simply.

"Try harder not to," I bite back. My wasted fear morphs into aimless anger. My heart is thundering against my rib cage so hard it's almost painful. I press a hand there and force myself to take deep breaths. "Here's a tip: don't sneak into my room in the middle of the night."

"This is my room," he points out calmly, hands shoved into the pockets of his dark gray sweats.

Does he ever not look good? I wonder idly. I'm grateful that I woke up a few hours ago and took a shower. I wanted to take a bath just to spite Mikhail, but he made a good point—it would've been embarrassing to survive a kidnapping and imprisonment just to drown in a tub because I couldn't stay awake.

"Another reason I should have slept in my own room. You just rescued me from a psychotic kidnapper, so having anyone lurking around my bed in the dark is definitely a bad idea."

"I didn't come here to lurk." He holds out a hand to me. "Come with me."

I'm still annoyed, but I slide my hand into his on pure instinct. It's the way you try to catch a baseball that's flying towards your face. When something dangerous comes your way, you react.

Lord knows there is certainly something dangerous about the shimmer I feel under my skin when Mikhail touches me.

"It's late. Where are we going?"

He grabs a flannel shirt from the closet and holds it out for me, stopping only to let his eyes slide down my body. Well, I don't need to worry about getting chilly if he keeps looking at me like that.

"You're wearing my shirt," he observes.

I can't get a read on him. He saves my life and then tells me that I can never leave his house with my son. He gives me a shirt to wear, but when I put it on, he looks at me like I killed someone and am wearing their skin around as a suit.

"They're the clothes you gave me earlier." I tug on the hem of the shirt as if I might be able to make it magically fall to my knees instead of barely grazing mid-thigh. "I took a shower and changed. I hope that's okay."

He drapes the flannel over my shoulders. "I wouldn't have given it to you if I didn't want you to wear it."

Mikhail takes my hand and leads me into the dark hallway. I expect him to head towards the stairs, but he moves to the end of the hall and opens a door I've never noticed before. It's paneled with the same wainscoting as the lower half of the wall and is painted the same warm white as the upper half.

"A secret door?" I sound casual, but there's a twinge of panic low in my gut.

He told me he wasn't going to lock me up, but what if he's changed his mind? Am I willingly walking into a Jane Eyre scenario? I cannot be locked in some attic somewhere while Mikhail marries and lives with another woman one floor below me.

"Relax." I didn't notice Mikhail turning towards me, but his chest is a solid wall in front of me. He pulls me close, his lips next to my ear. "You're safe here, Viviana."

Of course he noticed my fear. Nothing gets past Mikhail.

When my breathing evens out, he squeezes my hand and opens the door.

We step out onto a deep balcony. It's shielded by the house on three sides, which might be why I never noticed it before. Not even when Dante and I would play in the backyard. It's tucked away, hidden from view and the wind. But the view looks down over the lawn and the tree-lined property beyond the fence.

"A balcony?" A soft night breeze blows through my hair and I still don't believe it. "You have a secret balcony?"

"It's not a secret. It's just… private." He closes the door to the hallway behind us. "I don't tell most people about it."

"But you're telling me?"

"You're not most people."

I frown. There aren't many ways to interpret what he's saying, but I still won't let myself believe any of this is happening.

Instead, I twist away from him and look around the balcony. It's not elaborate the way the rest of the house is. There are no Adirondack chairs or large umbrellas to lounge under. It's empty, except for a thick duvet spread out in the middle of the patio with a telescope set up on the corner.

"You do a lot of stargazing out here?"

"Never," he laughs.

I gesture to the telescope. "Then how do you explain this?"

"Good question." He drags a hand through his hair and for the first time since he peeked over the blankets at me, I realize… Mikhail is nervous.

I'm not sure what to make of that, so I stare at him, waiting.

"You and I didn't get to know each other the way most people do. We never had a first date." He stops, considering that point. "I've never had a first date with anyone, actually."

"Are you trying to humble brag about how women throw themselves at you without the promise of a free dinner and drinks? If so, I'd like to go back to bed."

I pretend to walk away, but Mikhail grabs my elbow. He draws slow circles over the inside of my arm with his thumb. Awareness thrums through me.

In his defense, it's not hard to understand why women throw themselves at him.

"What I'm trying to do is tell you that there has never been a woman who made me want to try. Until you."

I'm just as frozen as I was in bed. I'm just as terrified, too. I don't want to make any sudden moves in case this moment shatters.

"I told you before that I was a wreck after you left. And I told you that I had to come save you from Trofim because you didn't belong there. But it wasn't because I felt guilty about sending you away or because I was jealous that you were going to marry some other man." He blows out a breath. "The reason I was a wreck and had to come save you is because I'm in love with you."

Mikhail is staring straight into my eyes, saying words I never thought I'd hear, and I can't move. Can't speak. Tears slip down my cheeks, and I can't even wipe them away.

So Mikhail does it for me.

He cradles my face, using his thumbs to dab my tears away. "I was wrong when I made you leave, Viviana. Even if you had killed Trofim, I still would have been wrong. Because I should have killed Trofim six years ago when I saw the way he was throwing you around that hotel room. I should have killed him for having you and being stupid enough not to realize how fucking lucky he was."

I choke out a sob, barely managing to wrangle the emotions raging through my chest. "But the Greeks…"

His mouth quirks into the most gorgeous smile I've ever seen. "I already told you: being able to have you is the best reason I can think of to go to war. I'll kill them all to keep you and Dante."

The tears won't stop. I bury my face in Mikhail's shoulder, sobbing while he holds me.

"This was supposed to make you happy," he whispers in my ear.

That, of course, only makes me cry harder.

He's patient with me, holding me close until I can pull myself together and look in his eyes without dissolving into more tears. "So what's the telescope for?"

"I tell you I love you and you're still focused on the telescope?" He shakes his head. "Reminder for next time: show her the star you bought and named after her and then confess how you feel."

I pull back, still clutching his shoulders. "You bought me a star?"

He directs me down to the blanket and checks the telescope. Then he points for me to look.

The section of sky I can see through the viewfinder is dark, white pinpricks splattered like paint.

"Actually, I bought three stars. Do you see the small cluster on the left? There are three of them. One for each of us." His hand settles on my thigh. "You, me, and Dante."

My heart swells. A million thoughts run through my head about what this means and where we go from here. Then I see another star just underneath the cluster of three.

When I tell him the news about the baby, will he buy that one, too? So all of us can be up there together. Forever. What if there's more in our future? What if we buy the whole galaxy and fill it with little Novikovs?

"Do you like it?"

"It's perfect," I choke out.

"Anatoly mentioned flowers and chocolates," he says dismissively, "but this felt better."

I finally look up at him, my cheeks flushed. "You talked to Anatoly about me?"

"Shocking, I know." He chuckles. "He was unbearable through the entire process. That should be proof enough that I'll do anything it takes to show you how I feel. I probably didn't need to do the rest of this."

I squeeze his hand and press my cheek to his shoulder. He's solid and warm—a safe place to land. "I'm glad you did the rest of it. It's nice."

"Nice enough for you to forgive me?"

It's funny that I asked Mikhail for time to think. Now, we're sitting here on a blanket under the stars and I can't imagine what there is to think about. The truth is embedded in my bones, as much a part of me as my own heart.

"Of course I forgive you, Mikhail." I turn into him, my hand curling above his heart. "I love you, too."

His eyes widen. He's stunned for just a second. Then he grips my waist and pulls me into his lap. "Show me."