The knock on my door makes me jump, even though I know exactly who it is.
I stand marooned in the middle of my tiny apartment, still wearing the clothes I was wearing when I puked into that poor, defenseless ficus. May he rest in peace.
On top of that, my hair is a disaster, I’ve got mascara streaked halfway down my cheeks from crying, and I’m pretty sure there’s still the faint smell of vomit clinging to me despite my best efforts with mouthwash.
In other words, I look exactly how I feel: like complete garbage.
The knock comes again, more insistent this time.
“I know you’re in there, Rowan,” Vince calls through the door, his voice that particular blend of commanding and impatient that I’ve come to associate with him not getting his way immediately.
“Just a minute,” I call back, hastily wiping at my cheeks and running my fingers through my tangled hair.
It’s pointless, of course. No amount of last-minute primping is going to make me look less like a train wreck.
But hey, a girl can try.
I open the door to find Vince standing there, looking somehow even more intense than he did at the office. His eyes immediately scan me from head to toe, like he’s checking for injuries or something.
For a moment, I look back at him, and it feels like the beginning of our story is super-imposed on this moment.
A doorway framing him.
Eyes glued to mine, neither of us able to look away.
That Oh.
And a wink—no, not a wink, that’s just my eyes watering up again. It’s the product of overwhelm, overstimulation, over-everything. At a certain point, your nervous system just says Enough and things start leaking through the cracks, whether you like it or not.
We’re long past that point.
“Come in,” I sigh, stepping aside. “Before my neighbors start to wonder why an angry Russian man is lurking in my hallway at midnight.”
He enters, his presence immediately making my apartment feel about ten sizes smaller. Everything about him is just so big—not just physically, though God knows he has the shoulders of a linebacker—but his energy, his intensity.
Or maybe that’s just me.
“Sit,” I tell him, gesturing to my sagging couch. “Can I get you something to drink? I don’t have any of your fancy vodka, but there’s some box wine in the fridge. Oh, and if you like expired yogurt, then boy, do I have good news for you.”
His lip curls. Almost a smile, but not quite. “I’m fine.”
“Suit yourself.” I drop into the armchair across from him, suddenly exhausted beyond words. “Let’s just get to it, shall we? Why are you here, Vince?”
He stays standing, hands tucked in his pockets, eyes roaming around the room without ever settling on any one thing in particular.
“This place is a security nightmare,” he announces instead of answering my question. “Fire escape right outside the window. Paper-thin walls. That lock wouldn’t keep out a determined child, let alone—”
“Yes, yes, we’ve been over all that already. I didn’t know you moonlighted as a home security consultant,” I interrupt. “Is there a reason you’re casing my apartment like you’re planning to rob it?”
His eyes snap back to me. “It’s not safe. Not for you. Certainly not for the baby.”
“So you’ve said. Multiple times.”
He finally sits, perching on the edge of my couch like he’s afraid it might contaminate him. His face shifts, that mask of control slipping just enough to show me something anguished underneath.
“We need to talk about what happens next,” he says.
“Yes, we do.” I wrap my arms around myself. “Starting with your engagement to Anastasia.”
“The arrangement with Anastasia was never what you thought,” he replies. “It was meant to be a marriage of convenience. A business arrangement that would satisfy my father’s conditions for my inheritance.”
“So romantic,” I mutter. “Is Hallmark aware? Have you informed Nicholas Sparks?”
“We both had an understanding,” he continues, ignoring my sarcasm. “She has someone else, too. Someone her family wouldn’t approve of.”
I stare at him, trying to process this information. “So you were just going to… what? Marry her on paper but keep sleeping with me on the side? Do I have that right?”
The silence that follows tells me everything I need to know. Everything I’ve asked sarcastically again and again but been afraid to actually learn the answer to.
“Wow,” I whisper into the silence as a fresh wave of hurt crashes over me. “I was right all along. I was just going to be your dirty little secret.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like, Vince? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks exactly like that. You get the suitable wife from the right family, and I get… what? Scraps of your time in dingy hotel rooms? Fuck Hallmark and Nick Sparks; someone get Shakespeare on the phone. I’ve got something great for him.”
“Plans change,” he says firmly. “The baby changes everything.”
“The baby doesn’t change anything. I told you I haven’t decided—”
“Marry me.”
For a moment, I actually wonder if I’m hallucinating.
“… What?” I manage to croak out.
“Marry me,” he repeats, leaning forward until his face is all I can see. “You’re carrying my child. It’s the logical solution.”
Logical solution. Not exactly the proposal every girl dreams of.
“Are you—” I sputter. “—are you seriously proposing to me right now? Like this?”
“Yes.”
“In my crappy apartment, while I’m still wearing my vomit clothes, with absolutely no hint of actual feeling beyond ‘It’s the logical solution’?”
His brow furrows. “The setting is irrelevant. The practical considerations—”
“The setting is not irrelevant!” I explode, jumping to my feet. “And neither are feelings, Vince! God, could you be any more… more…?”
“More what?” he asks, rising to match me.
“More transactional!” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Do you even hear yourself? Christ, am I going insane?!”
“This is about more than just us, Rowan,” he says, his voice taking on that edge of impatience again. “This is about our child. About security and giving that baby everything it deserves.”
“Including a loveless marriage?”
“Who said anything about love?” His face is a carefully controlled mask now. “This is about practicality. We have to do the right thing.”
The words slice through me like shards of broken glass, as the snow globe perfection of my imagined future gets crushed beneath Vince’s heel.
“No,” I say quietly.
He goes completely still. “No?”
“No,” I repeat, stronger this time. “I won’t marry you.”
He says nothing at first. Just stares at me like I’ve suddenly started speaking in tongues. Maybe I am going insane after all.
“That’s… not rational,” he finally says, his voice dangerously soft.
“Maybe I’m not feeling particularly rational right now,” I shoot back. “Did it ever cross your mind that I want more than to be your convenient solution to an inheritance problem? Forgive me if I’m not exactly swooning at your romantic declaration.”
“You’re being deliberately difficult.”
“And you’re being deliberately obtuse!” I can feel tears threatening again, but I refuse to let them fall. “I will not be another transaction in your life, Vince. I will not marry you just so you can secure your precious inheritance and have your heir. Fuck. That. And you know what? Fuck you for even suggesting it.”
His face darkens. I’ve never seen him look quite like this before—not even when he killed that man in front of me. It’s like watching a storm front roll in.
Not just any storm, though.
The Last Storm.
The End of Days.
The Akopov Apocalypse.
“You don’t understand what you’re refusing,” he snarls. “What you’re risking.”
“You’ve got about five seconds to explain it to me before I throw you the hell out.”
“Rowan, I—”
“And do not touch me!” I snap, scooting away before his reaching fingers can make contact against my fevered skin. “Use your words or there’s the door.”
He drops his hand with a tortured sigh. “If you’re not my wife, you’re not under my protection. Do you understand what that means? The danger you’d be in as the mother of my child without the Akopov name to shield you?”
A cold shiver runs down my spine, but I stand my ground. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m stating facts.” His voice has gone flat, emotionless. “My world is dangerous, Rowan. You’ve seen it firsthand. Without marriage, without the protection of my name, you and the baby become targets. Vulnerabilities that my enemies can exploit.”
“So my choices are to marry you or live in fear? Jeez, just when I thought this proposal couldn’t get any worse.”
“Your choices,” he reiterates, “are to marry me and accept my protection, or to refuse and face the consequences.”
“And what consequences would those be, exactly?”
”For one, your position at Akopov Industries would become… untenable.”
I gawk at him in disbelief. “You’d… you’d fire me? For not marrying you? Am I… Jesus, you can’t be serious.”
“It would be for your own safety,” he continues smoothly. “The FBI is already interested in you because of your connection to me. The longer you remain in my orbit without the protection marriage would provide, the more danger you’re in.”
“So you are in fact giving me an ultimatum.” I laugh, though it’s the saddest sound I’ve ever heard. “Marry you or lose my job, my income, my freedom, maybe even my life. I said use your words, but damn, you did not mince them, did you?”
“I’m giving you reality,” he intones. “Take it or leave it.”
The sheer audacity of it all, this whole godforsaken scene, leaves me speechless. This man—this arrogant, controlling, infuriating bastard—actually believes he can just order me to marry him.
“Get out,” I whisper, my voice shaking with fury.
He blinks. “Rowan—”
“Get the hell out of my apartment, Vince.” I’m trembling now, from rage or hurt or some toxic combination of both. “We’re done with this conversation.”
“Row—”
“Out! Out! Get the fuck out!”
I’m standing now, screaming, and I know I look like an insane banshee but I just do. not. care.
I want Vincent Akopov out of my life.
For a moment, I think he might refuse. That he’ll continue to push and bully and demand until he gets his way, just like he always does.
But then something shifts in his expression—a subtle softening around the eyes, a barely perceptible loosening of his jaw. An unlocking of something terrifying.
“Think about what I said,” he says, his voice quieter now but still shot through with steel and ice. “Think about the baby.”
“The baby will be just fine without your ‘logical solution,’” I snap. “Now, leave.”
He moves to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “My men will remain outside. For your safety.”
“How generous of you,” I spit. “Providing protection with one hand while threatening to take it away with the other. It must be so fun being you. Do we all look tiny from up there on your high horse?”
He turns back, and for just a flash of a second, I see something that looks almost like pain in his eyes.
“This isn’t what I wanted, you know,” he says softly.
“No,” I agree. “What you wanted was for me to fall gratefully at your feet and thank you for deigning to make an honest woman out of me. I’m so terribly sorry to disappoint.”
He just sighs.
Then, with that witty final blow, he’s gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
And I’m alone.
I sink to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees as the tears I’ve been fighting finally break free. They come in great, heaving sobs that shake my entire body. All the fear and hurt and rage pours out of me in a pitiful torrent I can’t control.
How dare he? How fucking dare he waltz in here and propose to me like that?
And then to threaten me when I refuse? To hold my job hostage? To make me feel like I don’t have a choice?
This is the ultimate confirmation of what I’ve secretly feared all along: To Vincent Akopov, I’m just a means to an end.
Not a person with feelings and needs and wants.
Never, ever someone worthy of actual love.
Well, he can take his logical solution and shove it somewhere extremely uncomfortable. I survived for twenty-seven years before Vincent Akopov barged into my life with his ice-blue eyes and his mind-blowing sex and his goddamn superiority complex.
I can survive without him now.
