Page 148 of Secret Heir

But weeks pass with no movement. No attacks. No threats beyond that one message.

The silence is almost worse than an actual attack would be. At least with an attack, we’d know what we’re dealing with. This waiting—this not knowing—eats at me. I start to hope that maybe the Corsicans decided the war isn’t worth it and they’ve moved on to other concerns.

Maybe we’re actually safe now.

In the meantime, I focus on what’s really important: my family. Daniel is recovering slowly from the trauma. He still has nightmares sometimes and wakes up screaming about not being able to breathe. Aria and I take turns sitting with him until he falls back asleep, one of us always keeping watch. He still checks his food carefully, watching who prepares it, and sometimes asking us to taste it first even though we’ve told him a hundred times that he’s safe now.

But he’s laughing again. Playing again. I hear him in the backyard with his soccer ball, practicing drills I showed him. He reads his adventure books, completely absorbed in stories about pirates and treasure again.

And he calls me still calls me “Papa,” which is the sweetest sound in the world.

“Papa, can you help me tie my shoe?”

“Papa, watch this trick I learned with the ball!”

“Papa, will you read me the next chapter before bed?”

Every time he says it, I’m nearly overcome with emotion. This boy—my son—has bonded to me in ways that go beyond blood. He chose me as his father, and I chose him as my son, and that choice means everything.

Other than Daniel, my focus is on Aria. And I’ve been carrying my grandmother’s ring in my pocket for three days now, waiting for the right moment.

The ring is a single diamond set in platinum. It’s elegant and timeless. My grandmother wore it for fifty years, and my mother gave it to me years ago, telling me to save it for someone special.

I never thought I’d find that someone. Why would I ever have wanted the kind of life that includes marriage?

Then Aria Delano walked into my life eight years ago, and everything changed.

One evening, I find her in the estate’s garden. It’s late afternoon, the sun casting everything in golden light. She’s sitting on a stone bench near the rose bushes, reading a book, one hand resting on her swollen belly. I stop and watch her.

She’s in her third trimester and her body has obviously changed. She glows in the sunshine, and I feel possessive pride wash over me. This woman is carrying my child and she’s safe and happy and mine.

She looks up when she hears my footsteps and smiles. “Hey. Where’s Daniel?”

“With his tutor practicing Russian.” I hired a retired professor from Moscow to teach Daniel the language. He’s picking it up quickly, his young brain absorbing vocabulary and grammar with ease. He delighted Nikolai last week when they had a brief conversation in Russian over dinner. “We have a few minutes.”

I sit beside her on the bench, suddenly nervous in a way I haven’t been since I was a teenager asking a girl to dance.

“Aria, I need to ask you something.”

She sets down her book immediately, concern crossing her face. “Is everything okay? Did something happen with the Corsicans? Nikolai⁠—”

“Nothing’s wrong.” I take her hand, feeling the familiar warmth of her skin against mine and letting it ground me. “Everything’s right. For the first time in eight years, everything is exactly right.”

Aria’s eyebrows furrow and she eyes me skeptically. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

It will in a few moments.

I slide off the bench and get down on one knee despite the lingering soreness in my left shoulder. It’s still healing from the gunshot wound, and Dr Petrov says it’ll probably always hurt on some level, but I don’t care.

This is more important.

Aria’s breath catches. “Maksim⁠—”

“I know we’ve done everything backwards,” I say, the words tumbling out. “I found you and forced you to come here. We fell in love while hating each other. We survived assassination attempts and conspiracies and more violence than anyone should have to endure.” I pull out the ring and her eyes are as round as saucers. “But I want to do this one thing right. I want to ask you properly.”

Her eyes are already filling with tears.

“Aria Delano, will you marry me?” I hold up the ring, my hand steady even though my heart is racing. “Will you be my wife—not because I’m forcing you, not because of our children, but because you choose me and I choose you? Because I love you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone, and I want to spend the rest of my life proving that to you every single day?”