41. Viviana

Mikhail, Dante, the baby we're trying for… that's enough for me.

They are more than enough for me.

I laid in bed all night, feeling the truth of that deep in my bones. But I couldn't ignore another, just as persistent truth: knowing they are enough doesn't mean I can't want more.

Mikhail is in the kitchen with a mug of coffee when I walk in, armed with nothing but a middle-of-the-night plan and unearned optimism. He looks up and then looks harder. It's like a double take, but from the moment he sets his eyes on me, they never waver.

He slams his mug on the table and I have to fight not to flinch.

If I had to guess, I'd say he's probably pissed because I'm wearing my go-to work outfit—a navy blue pencil skirt with a pale blue button-down. The top few buttons are open, revealing the barest hint of business-appropriate cleavage. The heels are three inches high—tall enough that I meet most men in the office at eye-level, but short enough that I can be on my feet all day without wanting to throw myself out of a conference room window.

"Viviana." Mikhail grits out my name. I'm not sure if he's mad at me or seconds away from fucking me on the countertop the way he did a few days ago. He always had a thing for this skirt.

"Good morning," I chirp, turning away from him to pour myself some coffee.

He curses softly under his breath.

A second later, he's behind me. We aren't touching, but I can feel him. It's a pull like magnets getting too close.

"How did you sleep?" I ask innocently.

"Peacefully," he snarls. "Because my wife respects my decisions and doesn't pull ridiculous stunts to get my attention."

I hum in agreement, nodding along even though I want to elbow him in the ribs. "That's great, Mikhail. I slept well, too."

"Viviana." He repeats my name again, lower this time. "Don't do this."

I turn to face him. My hands are shaking so badly I have to leave my coffee on the counter. I don't want to spill it on my shirt. "I'm not doing anything, Mikhail."

He pointedly looks me up and down. "Then what's this?"

"It's not a stunt to get your attention, that's for sure."

"Well, you've got my attention anyway. What the fuck is this about?"

I sigh. "I want to go back to work."

"No."

"You can't just dismiss me like that. I'm your wife. We are in this together."

"You are my wife," he agrees. "And I'm not going to let my wife die in this war because she wanted to get paid by the hour to make copies and schedule meetings."

"Don't dismiss what I do! Don't act like it means nothing."

"But it does mean nothing." He cradles my cheek in his hand, stepping closer so I have to tip my head back to take in all of him. "Everything means nothing compared to you. You are the only thing that matters to me, Viviana. Keeping you safe is more important than anything else."

My heart cracks open at the tenderness in his voice, but I steel myself. I knew there was a real risk I would cave to his warm hands and soft lips and deep voice. God knows I've caved more than enough times already.

That's why I practiced this. I press my shoulders back and repeat the line I prepared. "If you won't let me work at Cerberus, then I'll apply for a job somewhere else."

His hand drops to his side. His eyes narrow. "Not without my permission."

"You're my husband, not my prison warden. I don't need your permission." I reach for his hand, stroking my thumb over his thick wrist. "You can't force me to stay home, Mikhail."

He looks down at where I'm touching him. For a second, I think he might be ready to compromise.

Then he raises my arm over my head, bends low, and tosses me over his shoulder like I'm a fresh kill, like the deer from the woods. He might as well bind my hands and legs and drag me across the floor toward the clean-up shed.

"Put me down!" I pound my fists on his back all the way up the stairs and down the hall, but it's about as worthwhile as punching a concrete wall. Feels about the same, too. My hand is throbbing, but he doesn't even have the decency to pretend I'm hurting him. "Mikhail, put me?—"

He drops me unceremoniously on the bed. My old bed, I realize as I fall face first into a comforter that doesn't smell anything like Mikhail.

I felt powerful when I put this outfit on this morning, but now, it's twisted around my waist and rumpled. I feel like a newborn giraffe taking its first steps as I scramble to the edge of the bed.

"What in the hell was that for?"

"I can't trust you to do the smart thing, so I'm doing it for you."

I gape. "You're locking me in here?"

"You aren't giving me another choice."

"You have a million choices. You live a blessed life where every choice is yours—even other people's!"

He rolls his eyes and I take the opportunity to lunge for the door.

Mikhail catches me around the waist easily and slings me back on the bed.

"You have guards all over this house," I remind him. "You don't need to lock me up in one room to keep me here."

"I know you better than anyone, Viviana." He curls a finger under my chin. I swat him away and the asshole just smirks. "Which is why you and I both know I absolutely need to lock you in this room if there's any chance you'll behave today."

I fight with him all the way to the door, but he pins my arms to my sides, kisses my forehead, and then pushes me away from the door just before he slams it closed.

For the first hour, I alternate between banging on the door and lying on the bed, my head dangling off the end. As if a different perspective on the room might reveal some escape hatch I missed earlier. A secret tunnel or one of those spinning bookshelves from the movies.

But it's the same old room. A balcony that's too far from the ground to jump off and a locked door that, even if I could get through it, would leave me facing down a small army of guards who would rather make a lifelong enemy out of me than go against Mikhail's orders.

Eventually, I flip through a few books and try to lose myself in mindless television, but the minutes crawl by.

There's one brief burst of excitement when the door cracks open mid-afternoon and Anatoly's face appears. He's there only long enough to hurl a protein bar and a bottle of water at me before snapping it shut again.

"Ow!" I shout at him, rubbing the sore spot on my thigh where the water bottle pelted me. I swear I hear him laughing as he walks away.

It's as I'm pulling the hem of my skirt up to inspect my thigh that an idea hits me.

I kick the protein bar under the bed and run into my picked-over closet. Most of my clothes have migrated into Mikhail's room, including all of my favorite pajamas and most comfortable leggings. But what this closet is absolutely lousy with is lingerie. Between Mikhail working nonstop the first few days we were back and our fight, I haven't had much use for it.

Until now.

I undress, swap out my nude bra and undies for something red and lacy, and then re-dress. But this time, I hike my skirt a little higher on my hips, rolling the band under so the hemline falls to my mid-thigh. I also unbutton my shirt until my business-appropriate cleavage is something closer to "ripe for an HR complaint." So much of my chest is visible that just walking through the front doors in this shirt might be considered sexual harassment.

If that isn't, then texting photos of myself in this outfit to the CEO's personal phone definitely qualifies.

But locking me in this room against my will is abduction, so I think said CEO has it coming.

I balance my phone on a pile of books at the end of the bed and embark on the boudoir session of Mikhail's dreams. If he thinks he can drop me in this room and forget about me from nine to five, he has another thing coming.

I start off slow—a few stereotypical sexy assistant shots where I'm biting the end of a pencil and crawling towards the phone with my shirt draped open. Then I start thinking about how Mikhail will respond when he sees these photos. What he'll do…

To himself.

To me.

I send the first batch of photos and don't wait to see what he says before the skirt is in a rumpled pile next to the bed and my shirt is unbuttoned. I let the sleeves slip down my shoulders as I run my hands over myself, imagining they belong to Mikhail. I snap photos from every imaginable angle, sending them as fast as I can take them.

By the time the sun is sinking low outside my window, I'm wound tight. I texted Mikhail more than enough photos that suggested I took care of myself all day, but I never actually finished. Coming from my own hand while my traitorous brain pictured Mikhail would feel like a hollow victory.

I want to save the sexual tension swirling in me for when Mikhail comes crawling through my door, begging me for forgiveness and to put him out of his horny misery.

I'm perched on the end of the bed in my lingerie and my loosely-buttoned shirt when the lock finally clicks open and Mikhail steps inside.

I curl my legs underneath me, sit tall, and wait for the groveling to start.

But Mikhail doesn't drop to his knees. His tongue doesn't loll out of his mouth. Cartoon hearts don't explode out of his eyes.

He stops in the doorway, looking like an exhausted, less put-together version of the man who locked me in this room eight hours ago, and crosses his arms. "Is this all a game for you, Viviana?"

None of the Mikhails in my imagination ever said that, so I'm not sure how to respond.

His jaw shifts. "I didn't lock you in here as a joke."

"That's good, because it wasn't funny," I snipe back.

He drags a hand through his hair. His tie is loose around his neck. "I needed you to understand where I'm coming from. I thought you'd sit in here and think about?—"

"You sent me to my room to ‘think about what I've done?'" I snort. "I'm not a child, Mikhail. You can't lock me away every time we disagree."

"I don't have a choice when we disagree on what your safety is worth!"

I roll my eyes. "You spent all day in the office. If you're safe there, then I don't see why I wouldn't be."

"You don't see because you've never seen it," he growls. He paces away from me before he spins back, eyes pleading with me to listen. "You've never walked into your own house to find your family butchered."

The oxygen in the room is sucked out in an instant. Suddenly, I want one hundred more layers to hide in. I want to look like Joey in that one episode of Friends. "Could I have any more clothes on?!" Because the next-to-nothing I'm wearing is a slap in the face to the trauma Mikhail has been through.

Trauma I should have thought about before I spent all day sexting him when he was trying to protect me.

"I've lost my family before, Viviana. I know what my enemies are capable of. They don't want to kill me; they want to destroy me." His voice breaks at the same time my heart does. "Killing you would be a surefire way to make that happen."

I lunge across the room just like I did eight hours ago. But this time, I throw my arms around Mikhail's neck. "I'm sorry."

His hand slips under my shirt and spreads across the bare skin of my back. It's warm and firm and comfortable. "I need to know that you understand what's at stake."

I nod against his chest and take deep breaths of the woodsy citrus scent of him. "I understand."

"I'm not going to lose you," he mutters into my hair. His voice is so soft I'm not even sure he's talking to me.

But I hear him loud and clear.

I hold him tighter.

Mikhail and Dante and the family we're building are enough for me. They're more than enough.

They're all I need.