I laughed bitterly.
“My life?” I gestured vaguely around the room. “My life was building jewelry on my own terms, saving enough to start my own studio, maybe even showing at a gallery in Bogotá someday. My life was mine, until you put a collar on it.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak.
I wanted to ask if he killed Yuri. I had my suspicions, almost certainty. But I needed to hear it. I needed the truth. Just not here. Not now. Not when the answer might make me feel something dangerously close to relief. I swallowed it.
“I’ll sign,” I said. “But I have one condition.”
He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing.
“Dinner,” I said. “Every night. No exceptions. No games. One hour. You and me.”
The room went still. Tighter. Like even the shadows were listening. I needed more than rules and silence if I was going to make it out of this whole. I needed leverage. I needed to see the cracks in the man who held my leash.
“Why?”
I stepped closer, not touching, not quite brave enough for that, but close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. “Because if I’m going to survive twelve months in your frozen kingdom,” I said, voice low and steady, “I need to know the devil who owns me.”
For a moment, I thought he might laugh. But instead, a slow smile spread across his lips. Not amused. Not soft. Something darker. Something... pleased.
Approval, maybe. Or something close to desire.
“Agreed,” he said, his voice like gravel and heat.
He pushed the folder toward me again. “Sign.”
I took the pen.
My hand hesitated for a heartbeat, then I signed, the tip dragging across the paper with a finality I felt in my bones.
The ink hadn’t even dried before Misha turned, his back already to me, moving as though I no longer mattered. He paused at the door, just for a heartbeat, then glanced back. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t stay. He left me.
Alone. Married. Owned.
The ticking of the gilded clock behind me was deafening, each second a reminder of everything I’d lost, the dream of my studio, my art, my freedom, all slipping through my fingers. Gone.
Because I wasn’t Luna the artist anymore.
I was Mrs. Luna Petrov.
And that title might cost me far more than just twelve months.
Chapter 6
LUNA
The North Wing was colder than the rest of the mansion. Not just in temperature, but in feeling. Even with the fire crackling in the marble hearth, the walls felt... sterile. Lifeless. Like no warmth had ever touched them.
Maybe that was the point.
I sat stiffly on the edge of the giant bed, dressed in the soft black sweater and jeans one of the maids had laid out for me. No silk. No lace. Just comfort clothes.
Because tonight wasn’t about seduction.
It was about survival.
I had made him agree to dinner every night.
