Page 100 of Bought to Bear Bratva Heir

A flicker of confusion swept over her face. "You bought a house and didn’t tell me?" There was no anger in her voice; she was simply asking.

"I actually bought it before you fell pregnant with Alec," I said softly, pulling the car to a stop.

"You did what?" she whispered.

"It’s been mine for years. I got it for us," I said softly, killing the engine. "I knew you would like it, so I bought it. Renovations took a while, but it’s ready for you now. Do you like it?"

Daisy remained motionless even as our nanny, Sara, came down the steps, a wide grin on her face.

"Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Popovitch."

I nodded a greeting at her even as I got out of the car and went to open their doors. "Rosie needs a diaper change."

"I’ll get right on that. Come on, Alec. You wanna see your bedroom?" Sara said.

My son didn’t need telling twice. Unclipping his seatbelt, he reached up and kissed his mother's cheek. "Can I?"

Daisy nodded silently.

"Daisy?" I asked when the children disappeared into the house. "Are you okay?"

I was beginning to worry because she still hadn’t moved.

Slowly, she untangled herself from the backseat and stood. Reaching for my hand, she squeezed my fingers.

"You bought me a house? All those years ago?" she whispered.

"I bought us a house, Daisy. A family home, with room to grow."

"You loved me—"

Keeping a tight grip on her hand, I pulled her into my chest and wrapped my arms around her. "Yeah, I loved you even then. I knew you were my future."

"Oh, Ilya." She gave a muffled sob into my chest, which just made my arms tighten more.

"Baby." My voice broke. "Why are you crying?"

It felt like my heart was twisting. I hadn’t thought she would cry, yet here she was in my arms, and it sounded like her heart was breaking.

"If you don’t like it, we can find something else," I whispered raggedly. "Anything else."

She hiccuped. "I love it, Ilya. These are happy tears. Can you show me around our new home?"

The happy tears that had leaked out of her eyes continued as I showed her around. I had decorated the house how I knew she would want it. Put in everything she had ever mentioned wanting or liking. It was a shrine to her and her needs.

It was only when we got to the west wing, which I had decorated solely for our children, that those tears had dried. Standing in the middle of the giant playroom, she looked out at Alec playing on the jungle gym and Sara rocking Rosie in her arms, and happiness flushed her face pink.

"This is beyond anything, Ilya," she sniffled, leaning heavily into me. "You thought of everything. I can’t believe you would go to so much trouble for us."

I turned her into my arms. "Nothing is too much trouble for you, Daisy. Or for our family."

I meant every word of it. If she hadn't liked it, I would have ripped it all out and started again. Or bought her something else.

Nothing else mattered to me but my wife’s happiness. I hadn’t been lying when I had told her that I would spend the rest of my life making things up to her. Buying her a mansion wasn’t that big a deal.

"I wanted us to have a family home. Somewhere just for us," I murmured, brushing my lips against her sweet, vanilla-scented hair. "Somewhere we could start fresh where there weren't somany painful memories." My voice turned croaky at the end. So full of emotion that it was hard to finish the sentence.

Gently, she pushed at my chest just enough to tilt her head up and stare at me. "What do you mean?" she whispered, but I could tell by the look on her face that she knew what I meant.