“I’ll just need a moment,” I told them, and with Adrik’s hand in mine, I made my way to the bathroom. Only once we were in the abandoned living room, Adrik pulled me to a stop. Facing him, I looked up into his eyes.

“West, I never knew they were coming or what they would say.”

My heart leaped to my throat, but I pushed on my nerves and rested a hand to his chest. “I know. I… I didn’t expect that type of reaction.” I licked my suddenly dry lips and glanced to the side in thought before meeting Adrik’s intense gaze as he studied my face. “I believe it was good for me, though.”

His lips thinned. “Still, it should not have happened. Not from them.” His jaw clenched. Reaching up, I traced a thumb over his jaw.

“Don’t be angry with them.”

“They upset you. I will be angry with them.”

I smiled. “Not too angry then. I’d still like to have dinner and get to know them.” And by the end of the night, maybe my emotions would settle enough to actually get to know them. “Besides.” I shrugged. “It’ll be my first chance to have dinner with the Russian mafia.”

He laughed unexpectedly even as his eyes widened with shock before he quickly clamped his lips shut. But he chuckled once more. Leaning in, he kissed my jaw. “You are something else, moya lyubov’.”

Moya lyubov’. My stomach did a summersault and then tried the high beam. The other day I had Google translate those words and found out exactly what they meant.

My love.

All this time he had been calling me his love.

I dropped my head to his chest and damn swooned. “I’m a good something else, right?”

“Always.”

“Okay.”

Moya lyubov’.

I would never get bored of hearing those words slip from his lips. Not when he said it as though I was someone he wanted to worship.

Yeah, I couldn’t explain why he thought I was it for him, but I was starting to allow him to believe it because I wouldn’t want a day to go by without seeing Adrik in it.

Chapter Seventeen

West

Later that night, I lay in bed beside Adrik and watched him read from a new series we’d started. “Adrik,” I interrupted.

“Da?” He pressed a finger to the spot he was up to and looked down at me lying on my stomach. I hadn’t yet managed to rest on my back; it was still too tender.

“Your parents are amazing.”

He snorted, glancing to the door. “They are okay.” He was still frustrated they’d upset me. Even throughout dinner he was curt with them, which they ignored.

“You’re lucky to have them.”

His jaw clenched. “Most days.”