Page 57 of The Enemy of My Enemy: Pt. 2

“I had a job,” she answered, and she answered so easily that my knees almost gave out on me.

“Astaroth,” I surmised,

Aurora nodded, and I tried not to get my hopes up too high, but that attempt vanished as she continued to talk.“Santino called me about...about something that could only be handled by me, and after learning the details, I couldn’t say no.”

“Why couldn’t you say no?”

She immediately shook her head.“No matter where we go from here, I will never tell you any Marchetti business, Viktor.If there’s truly a line between us, that’s it.You can never ask me about my family’s business, and you can be assured that I’ll never ask you about yours.”

“Even when their business involves my wife?”

“Even when their business involves your wife,” she asserted.“Because I can’t promise you that I’ll say no if my family ever calls because they need me.”

“And I’m supposed to just let you run off into the night, not knowing a fucking thing?”I bit out.“Is that it?”

Aurora walked over to me, then placed her hands on my chest in a bid to calm me down.“No, that’s not it.”

“Then what, Aurora?What?”

“Then I tell you that I have a job to do, and you trust me,” she answered easily.

“And if something goes wrong?”I asked, already feeling on edge over something that hadn’t even happened yet.

“Then you’ll end up getting a call from my father if I’m unable to make the call myself,” she said, making it sound all so simple, which it very much the fuck wasn’t.

I took a step back, needing some breathing room.“I’ll tell you what...I’ll start trusting you when you finally pack up the shit that actually matters to you and decorate our house with it.I’ll start trusting you when you begin to actually live in our house, not just the bedroom.”

“Viktor-”

“I can’t be the husband that you need if you refuse to be the wife that I want,” I told her.“Just like I can’t have it both ways, neither can you.”

“You never explained why we can’t take things slowly,” she said, eyeing me like either one of us might pull out our guns at any moment.

“Because I’m already in love with you,” I answered honestly.“It’s too late for me to take things slowly.”

“And because you’re already in love with me, I no longer have the option of taking it slowly?”she asked.“I’m not allowed the luxury of time?No adjustment or grace period?It has to be all or nothing because that’s the way it is for you?”

“It has to be all or nothing because, given the choice, you’d give me nothing, Aurora,” I replied, my voice hardened again.“And please don’t insult my intelligence by claiming otherwise.”

“Have you even once considered what it’s like for me to live in Korolev territory?”she asked, and I hated how even her tone sounded.This was our life that we were discussing, and she sounded just so unaffected by it all.

“Yes, I have,” I informed her.“Have you ever considered what it’s like for me to love someone who doesn’t love me back?”

“And you think that if I love you back, then everything will magically fall into place?”she asked quietly.

I stepped to her again, taking her face in my hands, desperation superseding the anger that I’d been feeling all fucking day.“No,” I answered truthfully.“Loving me back will only complicate matters further, but not for us.It’ll complicate matters for our families, but given the choice between them and you, it’s always going to be you, Aurora.”

That’s when it happened.

Her face softened, and her eyes no longer held that defiant look that they always had about them.If only for this one moment in time, Aurora was letting her guard down, and just when I’d thought that she couldn’t be more beautiful, this Aurora Marchetti was fucking breathtaking.

“Baby, I need you to love me back,” I said, not caring that I sounded close to begging.“Hell, I’ll settle for you even just liking me at this point.”

“The day that we become more important to each other than our families is the day that they should kill us both,” she said, and she wasn’t wrong about that.

I ran my hands from her face to her shoulders as I said, “They can try.”

“You only get one chance at this, Viktor,” she said, and my heart started beating with hope again.“If you want me to be your everything, then I need the same thing in return.”