Page 124 of Vow to Claim You

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“How?”

“Because I’m here. In your bed. In your house. In your life. In this frozen country so cold it makes my bones ache, married to a man who speaks in silences and fights with control and has more walls than a medieval fortress.”

A soft, unguarded sound escapes him—almost a laugh.

“And I’ve seen you, Aric. Not the ice. Not the walls. Not the mafia heir everyone else gets.” My fingers slide into his hair. “I’ve seen the man who put himself between me and a knife without thinking. Who took a bullet and didn’t flinch. Who burned a contract because he couldn’t stand to have me trapped by terms I never agreed to.”

I inhale slowly, holding his gaze, and suddenly every piece of him falls into place.

“Who trusted me enough to tell me all of this, because I asked him not to push me away.”

His hands lift and cover mine where they rest against his face.

“That man is capable of love.” I lean in and press my forehead to his. “I know he is. Because I’ve felt it. Even when you didn’t say it. Even when you tried to hide it. I felt it, Aric. I feel it.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” he whispers, his breath mingling with mine. “What if I get it wrong? What if I hurt you?”

I pull back just enough to look at him.

“You’re not him. You never will be. And I am not your mother.”

My thumb caresses his jaw on its own.

“I’m not going to leave you. Not because of where you came from. Not because of what you’ve done. Not because loving you is hard.”

His hands tighten over mine.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying. I’m choosing to stay—not for a contract, or an obligation, or an alliance. For you.”

He kisses me. But not like before. Not the desperate, consuming collision of hours ago.

This is different.

Softer. Slower. A vow instead of a claim.

I kiss him back with everything I have. My hands in his hair. My body pressed to his. My heart beating against his chest like it’s trying to find a way inside.

When we break apart, he doesn’t pull away. He stays close, forehead against mine, breathing me in like I’m oxygen. Like I’m the first clean breath he’s taken in years.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Ayanna

Aric is behind the desk when I come into his office after breakfast, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a white dressing stark against the forearm where the bullet grazed him last night. The man who stood at our bedroom window in the early hours with every scar laid bare has vanished. The mask is back in place. The Viking sits behind the desk instead—the man the world fears, and the one I now know is only half the truth.

“Vidar brought an important topic up during breakfast,” I hesitate, “What are you going to do about Farida?”

He doesn’t look up from the papers in front of him right away. When he does, his face has already arranged itself into the expression I’ve spent weeks learning to read—the flat, patient blankness that means he’s decided something and considers the matter closed.

“She helped lure me into a trap to kill me. She held a knife to your throat.” He sets the pen down. “I’d have thought the answer was obvious.”

“She’s a grieving mother.”

“She’s a threat.”