“I’m so sorry.”
My gaze jerks to hers. “What?”
“I’m sorry.” She falls back to lay on her pillow, her hands coming up to cover her eyes.
“Hold on. What in the actual fuck are you sorry for? Anya,” I take her wrists gently in my palms and pull her hands away from her face, “you didn’t do this. You didn’t choose this. You have nothing to apologize for.”
My blue-eyed girl is pregnant.
My heart starts beating a quicker rhythm as reality starts to grip me. Anya is pregnant, and we don’t know who the father is.
Anya is pregnant.
Pregnant.
“Ezra?” she says softly.
I shake my head, dragging myself out of this pit of worry I seem to have fallen into. I lean over her, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. “I love you. I love you forever. No matter what. We’re gonna figure this out together.”
Her blue irises flash from side to side as she looks deep into my eyes. “You promise you’re mine? Still mine? Always mine?”
I lift her wrists and kiss her knuckles. “Still yours. Always yours.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.” I shove the banana into her hand and smile at her. “Now eat this so you can start getting your strength back. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”
I think we’re going to need all the strength in the universe to cope with this shit. I feel like I could break down over this. The woman I love is a Mikhailov by marriage and she’s pregnant with someone’s child—a child who very well could belong to either of the two sadist, slave-owning fathers…or a child who could belong to me.
It could be mine.
I could crumble under the weight of these unknowns.
I feel that weight settling on my shoulders and it’s fucking heavy. But I have no choice other than to carry it. I have to carry my weight, and hers, because I can’t stand the thought of her lifting a finger to shoulder this burden.
This is my time to step up.
This is my time to figure out how to be a fucking man—how to be her man. She needs me more than ever and I’m not going to fail her.
Chapter 6
Anya
Ezra has been urging me to sleep since I regained consciousness. He’s so worried about me and it shows. I don’t want him to worry so much about me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Sometimes I think he loves me too much, so much that he would sacrifice his own well-being for mine. But I can’t blame him for feeling that way.
Because I love him that much, too.
About an hour has gone by since I passed out from the devastation of the two pink lines. Nikolai’s phone begins to ring in Ezra’s back pocket. He reaches behind him, interrupting our prone embrace on my bed, and pulls out the phone. We both sit up slowly and he hands it over to me with a reassuring nod—his encouragement gives me confidence. He strokes my hair and somehow, that gives me strength.
I tap to answer the call. “This is Anya.”
“Murphy O’Shea.” His familiar Irish accent croons through the phone.
I open my mouth to speak again, but Murphy starts talking before I have the chance.
“Listen here, lass. You must have the luck of the Irish on your side. Fucking rainbows and four-leaf clovers. If that wanker old man of yours hadn’t done his due diligence and made you a Mikhailov, we’d be busting arse to put a bullet between your eyes the moment we touch down. So, here’s the good news for you. There are no other Mikhailov descendants, and you are the only person with his goddamn name. So, welcome to the fucking board. When we arrive, I expect you to be there to meet our helicopter. You and that slave boy bring two cars to accommodate all of us. We’ll convene with you in the boardroom at Mikhailov Manor and decide what the fuck to do with the two of you judiciously, as you requested. We’re all en route to you now. We’ll be there in less than five hours. See you then.”
The call ends.
I look at Ezra. “Five hours.” I feel like ice is scraping over my bones as I realize time is ticking.
He nods, then curls his hand around the side of my head and pulls me close. I rest my head on his shoulder as he strokes my hair.
“Let’s sleep for three. Then we’ll get ready and drive back to the helipad to meet them.”
“Ezra, I’m scared. What will they do to you?”
“Don’t worry about me. As long as they don’t hurt you, I’ll be okay. No matter what. As long as you’re okay, then I’m okay. Now stop talking about it and let’s worry about getting our heads in the game. We need to be sharp, clear-headed, prepared for anything, right?”
I nod against his shoulder, turning my head to press my face into the side of his neck. I inhale the sweetness of his scent before placing a kiss to his skin. He inhales and exhales sharply.
“How do you do that?” he whispers, his fingers snaking into my hair, his nails softly scratching my scalp.
I lift my head to look up at him. “Do what?”
“Make me forget about everything but the way you make me want you, even in the face of death?”
The green of his eyes appears to melt as the lighter vibrant color drains slowly, letting the darker shade of emerald wash over. It’s a color that’s urgent, greedy, hungry, and his hunger only sparks mine.
“I don’t know,” I say softly. “But I feel it with you, too.”
His grip on my hair tightens, and though the possessiveness of it should alarm me, I find that it doesn’t.
Not even a little bit.
Not at all.
Ezra’s possession is wanted, needed. If I am his, then he is mine and I want nothing else.
“Ezra…” I say his name on a sigh and the spark in his eyes tells me he knows what I need.
How is this intense lust even possible from my abused, exhausted body?
He holds my head still and bends to kiss me recklessly. I moan against his lips as every bit of my body prickles to life with a hum of awareness. I part my lips for him, inviting him to taste me because I desperately need to taste him. He devours me with a fervor unlike anything I’ve felt from him before.
The way he claims his possession of me is desperate, needy, protective. This ferocity should scare me, but it doesn’t because I’m as ferociously needy as he is. My fingers claw at his chest, madly trying to cling to his skin and hold him against me. Everything inside me collapses and clenches, coiling tightly, painfully, low in my belly. It transforms me into a body with lust so frantic that it demands to be released.