Page 73 of Arranged Marriage to the Brutal Bratva King
“Diana. I want permission to maintain contact with Diana. Not just texts, actual friendship. Coffee, phone calls, someone outside this world who knows who I was before I became Mrs. Rudenko.”
Every instinct screams at me to refuse. Diana is a vulnerability. A connection that can be exploited. A crack in the armor I’m trying to build around Janice.
She’s also the difference between getting my wife back and watching her retreat further into untouchable distance.
“Fine. Diana only. No one else.”
“Agreed.”
“You come back to our room. Tonight.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Janice.”
“I’ll consider it,” she repeats, and this time there’s a hint of the fire I’ve been missing. “You asked for a real answer. That’smy real answer. You don’t get to command compliance and then complain when I use the same strategy back.”
She’s magnificent when she’s defiant.
I reach for her before I can stop myself, pulling her close despite the tension still humming between us. She stiffens but doesn’t pull away.
“I apologize,” I say against her hair. “For the way I handled your friend. Perhaps I should trust in you a little more, instead of…”
“Instead of what?”
“Instead of assuming the worst. I don’t want to lose you.”
She pulls back to look at me, surprise flickering across her face. “You’re afraid of losing me?”
“Terrified.”
“Why? You have all the power here. I can’t leave. Can’t divorce you. Can’t do anything without your permission.”
“Control doesn’t mean anything if you’re just waiting for the first opportunity to escape.”
Her expression softens fractionally. “I’m not planning to escape.”
“Aren’t you?”
She doesn’t answer. Just looks at me with those too-perceptive eyes that see through every defense I construct.
“Come to bed tonight,” I say. “Let me show you that I can give you more than rules and restrictions.”
“What happens if you mess it up again?”
“Then you go back to the guest suite and I figure out how to live with the consequences.”
Janice searches my face like she’s looking for deception. Whatever she finds must be enough, because she nods once.
“Okay. Tonight.”
She leaves the library, and I’m left standing in afternoon light, trying to process what just happened.
Chapter Nineteen - Janice
The phone feels like it’s burning through my pocket all day.
I carry it with me everywhere, terrified someone will find it, equally terrified of being without it when the next message comes. The mysterious contact has been patient so far, sending only occasional reminders that the offer still stands, that time is running out, that I need to decide.
