the priest, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I’d done a better job of concealing my inner panic as I’d spoken my vows to her. I’d been losing my shit on the inside, but I hadn’t been about to let her know that.
Even if those vows hadn’t been said out of love, I was a man of my word. I’d made a promise to Sergei, and by extension, to Lexi. That day, I not only swore to protect her from harm, but to faithfully honor our agreement until the deal I’d made with Sergei was fulfilled.
Now, those vows took on a whole new meaning as I stared at my wife.
I take you as my wife, to be with you always.
I guess that was a partial lie. There had never been any expectation of forever. In fact, we’d both been hoping it would come to an end as soon as humanly possible.
Fast forward to today, I honestly couldn’t imagine giving Lexi up. Not without driving my fist into something hard. I knew the day would eventually come when we’d have to say goodbye to each other, but I couldn’t even process how that would go. Couldn’t wrap my brain around what my life would look like once she was no longer in it.
Exactly how it looked before she entered it.
In other words, empty and depressing.
In a remarkably short time, she’d filled it with life again and colored in all the muted black and white. She made me smile—really smile. Not the cocky, practiced ones I reserved for everyone else. She made me laugh with the adorable way she always messed up a saying or phrase. And that fiery haughtiness of hers had called out to me from the first words she’d ever uttered in my presence.
Wife or no wife, the way I was feeling right then, I didn’t care what she called herself as long as she stayed mine.
The rest of the vows flitted through my mind.
In wealth and in poverty.
In disease and in health.
In happiness and in grief.
From this day until death separates us.
Those last two lines really hit home.
I wanted—needed—to make Lexi happy. I used to think I wasn’t capable of that feat, but that had changed over the last few days. I was no prince, but no other man on the planet would ever be more determined to please this woman than I was. I’d catalogued every time I’d impressed her, every laugh I’d wrung from her, every contented sigh I’d been rewarded with. I’d stored all of those moments away in my memory bank, so I could mimic those behaviors over and over again. I’d do it on a daily basis.
As long as she was happy, I’d be happy. I knew that with absolute certainty.
And God forbid anyone try to take her from me.
I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do when Sergei came calling. I was still working on how I was going to handle it the day he showed up to steal her back. I guess I’d just have to be straightforward and tell him.
There was no way in fuck I was annulling this marriage.
No one—not even death—was going to separate us.
I’d decimate any danger to her. I’d remove any threat. I’d murder in cold blood if it meant nothing evil ever touched her again. No one else would do a better job of protecting her, not even her own father. He might have wanted to keep her safe, but I needed to.
Shit.
Did all of this mean that I loved her?
As emotionally stunted as I was, I honestly didn’t know. Maybe?
I knew I was possessive as hell, so there was that. I definitely liked her, was in deep, deep lust with her. I very well could have been on the path to love, but I didn’t exactly know what that felt like. What it looked like? Sure. My parents, Cris and Jasmine, Ace and Roxy, Kade and Sam…that was all true love. I’d seen it from out an outsider’s perspective but never behind-the-scenes.
Either way, I wasn’t letting Lexi out of my sight until I figured it out.
I broke away from a conversation with Jasmine’s parents to shake Kade’s hand. We hadn’t had much time to catch up the other night at the bachelor party. Especially after I’d heard the words “male strip club” and “girls went to” in the same sentence.
“Good to see you again, man,” I told him, taking a pull of my drink.