Pregnant For the Mafia Boss

Chapter 4

ISABELLA'S POV

I woke wrapped in his warmth and the scent of his expensive cologne mixed with s*x.

For one beautiful, perfect moment, I kept my eyes closed and just felt welcomed in his embrace. All that fills my senses is the feeling of Viktor's arm around my waist, his chest rising and falling beneath my cheek and the delicious soreness between my thighs that proved last night hadn't been a dream.

I'd done it. After three years of loving him from afar, of hoping, waiting and wanting, I'd finally made Viktor Konstantin mine.

A smile tugged at my lips. I snuggled closer, pressing a soft kiss to his chest, right over his heart. The heart that beat for me now. The heart I'd won last night with my red dress and my determination and my...

He is too still.

The realization crept in slowly. Viktor's body is rigid beneath me, every of his muscle is tense like he is bracing for impact. His arm around my waist now feel more like a cage than an embrace. And he is staring at the ceiling with his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle ticking.

Something is wrong.

"Viktor?" My voice came out scratchy from all the screaming I'd done last night...the good kind of screaming, the kind that came from pleasure so intense I thought I'd die from it.

He didn't look at me. He just kept staring at that damn ceiling.

My stomach tightened with the first flutter of anxiety.

"We need to talk."

Four words. Just four simple words. But they landed like a death sentence.

No. No, no, no. Not those words. People said "we need to talk" when they were breaking up, when something was ending, when...

"Okay." I tried to keep my voice steady even as panic started to claw at my throat. I pulled the throw blanket tighter around my naked body, suddenly feeling exposed in a way I hadn't felt even when he was buried inside me. "What about?"

Viktor sat up abruptly, pulling away from me. The loss of his warmth felt like being plunged into ice water. He reached for his pants with jerky, angry movements and started pulling them on.

He still wouldn't look at me.

"Viktor, you're scaring me." My heart was pounding now, racing with fear I didn't want to name. "What's wrong?"

He grabbed his shirt, started buttoning it with steady hands while mine trembled. When he finally looked at me, his eyes were empty. Completely, devastatingly empty.

All the warmth from last night was gone. The man who'd whispered endearments while making love to me had disappeared. In his place was the cold, distant, untouchable Pakhan I have lived with the first year I came under his care.

"This." He gestured vaguely between us, and I felt my heart crack. "This was a mistake, Isabella."

Isabella. He called me Isabella.

Not Bella. Not milaya or solnyshko.

Isabella.

The name he used when he is angry or when he wants to be distant. When he was treating me like Roman Volkov's orphaned daughter instead of... instead of whatever I thought I'd become to him last night.

"What?" The word came out as barely a whisper.

Please let me have misheard. Please let this be some kind of misunderstanding.

"Last night." He finished buttoning his shirt, his movements precise and controlled. "It was a mistake. It never should have happened."

Each word he says is like a knife to my heart and the more words he utters twist that knife deeper.

"A mistake," I repeated, like if I said it out loud it might make sense or hurt less.

It didn't.

"Yes." His voice was so cold and clinical. Like he was discussing a business transaction gone wrong instead of... instead of what we'd done. What we'd shared. "You're nineteen years old, Bella. You're Roman's daughter. You're my responsibility. And I took advantage of that."

"You didn't..." I tried to protest, but he cut me off.

"I did." He grabbed his jacket now, and still wouldn't meet my eyes for more than a second at a time. "You came to me in that dress, and I was drunk and weak enough not to say no. But that doesn't make it right."

"You weren't drunk!" The words burst out of me, my anger cutting through my initial shock. "Viktor, you had ONE glass of whiskey hours before I even came to your study. You knew exactly what you were doing."

He'd been completely sober. I knew because I'd been watching him all the while living with him. He had only been drunk once. I have always known him to be sharp and focused and he'd been sharp and focused when he sat at his desk. In fact he was alert when he pulled me out from under it and stone-cold sober when he kissed me.

"Did I?" His laugh was bitter, cruel. "Or did I just see an opportunity and take it? You were available, willing, and I was lonely. That's all this was, Isabella. Physical release. Nothing more."

The words hit me like physical blows. I stumbled back, reaching out my hand for anything to steady myself.

Available. Willing. Physical release.

Nothing more.

"You're lying," I whispered, but my voice shook with doubt. "Last night...you told me...you said..."

"I said what you wanted to hear." He shrugged on his jacket with casual cruelty. "You're a child playing dress-up, Bella. You think you know what love is, but you don't. You've confused gratitude with affection, dependence with desire."

"That's not TRUE!" I stand on my feet and the blanket fall away. I didn't even care that I was stark naked, vulnerable, and exposed. "Viktor, I love you! I've loved you for three YEARS! This wasn't just...it wasn't..."

"It was sex." Finally, he looked at me fully, and the emptiness in his ice-blue eyes made me want to die. "That's all it was. And it's over now."

"No." I shook my head violently, tears starting to blur my vision. "No, you're pushing me away because you're scared. Because of what happened to Elena. Because you think if you love me, I'll die too. But Viktor, I'm not..."

"Don't." The word cracked me like a whip, making me flinch. "Don't bring her into this. This has nothing to do with Elena."

"It has EVERYTHING to do with her!" I start to cry openly now, not caring how desperate I looked. "You're terrified of loving anyone because Sokolov killed her! You think if you care about me, your enemies will target me too. So you're pushing me away to 'protect' me. But Viktor, I'm not afraid..."