Chapter 2

Kiara:

I smiled walking out of the bathroom to find a white simple dress hung on the closet’s door and white converse shoes under them. Raising an eyebrow at Nikolay’s choice of outfit, I nodded and dried my hair with my towel deciding to leave it to dry giving its natural curls. Nikolay liked my hair better that way anyway.

I put on the underwear Nikolay left me on the bed. Yes, my beloved husband decided to choose my WHOLE outfit today and that also included lace white panties and a matching bra. It was a new set too. The man was really going all out today with whatever he was planning and in all honesty, I wasn’t complaining. I was always amazed by how he expressed his love to me and found it impossible to compete with, no matter who stood in front of me. Who the couple were or who the man was, no one on Earth could compete with what Nikolay does to me. The love he shows me, the love I have for him. He used to tell me that I had entered his heart and settled in there, he didn’t know that it was the other way around.

The man had opened my heart, entered it, settled in, and locked it. No one was going to take his place, I knew that for fact. He was also easily jealous, the man would freak out when another man, aside from the men of our family, was around me. He would glare at the man until he was frightened to even complete a sentence. That of course, didn’t include Timur Zakharov, the man was Vladimir’s uncle, and he was the only one who made sure to annoy Nikolay by keeping his arm wrapped around me whenever he saw him. His wife, Nikita Zakharov knew her husband’s intentions and said nothing about it. She knew that the man had eyes for her only. Therefore, whatever he did didn’t phase her.

“Ah, Nikolay, what am I to do with you?” I asked myself out loud. I had gotten him a Rolex watch and Mont Blanc pen for our anniversary. I just wanted a proper time to give them to him and I just couldn’t find it. Having woken up, I was technically scolded for working myself too hard for our children and I knew that my husband was right. The last time I did what I was doing now, I was hospitalized for a week. You can already know that I got a fit from Nikolay first, then the whole family who were worried sick about me.

“I see that my beauty is ready and has started talking to herself?” Nikolay teased walking inside the bedroom. He didn’t bother knocking the door, though I was well aware that it was because he knew that I was bound to be ready. He wrapped his arm around my waist from the back and looked at me through the mirror as he rested his chin on my shoulder. It seemed to be a habit he had. Whenever he saw me getting ready, he would wrap his arms around my waist, we’d talk. He’d watch me fix my makeup or choose my jewels, we’d have a conversation at times. I’d get his opinion, he’d help me with my necklace, or choose which one he wanted me to wear this time.

“Your beauty wants to give you something but you were too busy scolding her this morning that she nearly forgot” I teased and Nikolay laughed, though he raised an eyebrow at me when I opened one of the drawers of the dresser and took out two wrapped boxes. I put them on the dresser and moved out of his arms and turned to face him making him frown in confusion as he approached the boxes and slowly unwrapped them revealing the boxes of the presents.

The first was the Rolex box revealed, I had initially wanted to give it to him in the bag. But having brought the gifts three days ago with Maddie, walking inside the house with a Mont Blanc bag and Rolex bag would have caught everyone’s attention. Then he opened the Mont Blanc’s bag looking at me with a smile on his face. Our eyes met and he cupped my cheeks kissing my lips softly.

“You are an angel, do you know that?” Nikolay said softly. I had gotten them for him as I knew that they once caught his eye. He didn’t buy them as he was annoyed by Caruso who had killed three men having lost control to the Bloodlust effect. We had tried putting him through a treatment to help him recover, but the man was losing control over himself for quiet a while. No matter how hard we tried helping him, he wouldn’t stop. The man had lost control and ended up trying to kill Madeline. Nikolay shot him before he managed to hurt her.

“Your angel and devil” I whispered to my husband and he smiled laying his head on my shoulder, kissing my neck as he hugged me tightly. The two of us pulled away to look at one another, he smiled at me and took my hand in his, intertwining our fingers. The two of us looked at one another and I smiled at my love who kissed my forehead.

“Come on princess, we should get going if we want to be back before nightfall”

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“Where are we going Nikolay?” I asked Nikolay who had my eyes covered with a scarf. I walked in front of him and he’s been guiding me for a while now, his hand on my waist as he made sure to stabilize my steps and as usual, he wouldn’t answer my question no matter how many times I asked where we were going.

“We’re almost there babe, you just need to be a little patient” Nikolay said kissing my cheek from the back as the two of us walked. It was a few minutes later when we suddenly stopped and Nikolay slowly removed the scarf from my eyes exposing the campsite we came to once almost five years back.

“What is this, Nik?” I whispered to my husband taking in the beautiful scene I saw in front of me. The campsite was decorated with romantic candles even though it was day time. Pillows were the campsite itself was the same as I once remembered it. I could tell that he renovated it, the building would have been ruined by the rain and lake. The humidity would have caused cracks on the building but everything was intact.

“It was where I first truly admitted to you that I was in love with you, remember?” Nikolay said wrapping his arm around my waist from the back, his chin on my shoulder and I looked at him side ways seeing him smile. Nikolay had given me a new wedding ring that day. He even made me get rid of the one I was wearing as he didn’t want us to remember how our marriage started. Nothing more than a contract marriage, we had hit one another with it for a while when we got engaged and when we first got married. Then one day we decided to be friends, that friendship brought back long buried feelings which the two of us had shared as children. Having been forced apart as children, we made the choice to let go of one another. Though the two of us never got over it, the love between us was too deep to simply forget, and seeing one another every now and then, though we didn’t admit it, didn’t help with anything.

The love was simply buried in our hearts only to sprout again like it was all meant to be, and in all honesty, despite not believing in fairytales, I believed that this was one fairytale that came true.

“How can I forget?” I whispered and Nikolay kissed my cheek, the two of us smiled as I turned around the face him. Wrapping my arms around his neck as I stood on my toes to reach his height, or at least as close as I could to it. Nikolay smiled and tightened his arms around my waist pulling me closer, he leaned in to my lips and softly connected our lips to one another’s. My eyes were closed as I embraced my love’s lips against my own. He smiled into the kiss and bit my bottom lip softly pulling it before pulling away from the kiss and resting his forehead against my own, looking me in the eye.

“I am in love with you Kiara, deeply, madly in love with you. I don’t even know how to describe it and I don’t want to know. My heart is in the palm of your hands, whether you choose to break it or cradle it. I’m giving it to you, willingly and completely” Nikolay whispered to me, he kissed my nose and I felt my heart race against my chest as I took in his words. It was as if he’d said them to me for the first time, as if he’d admitted his feelings to me for the first time. I remember feeling the same way the first time he’d told me that he loves me, I knew then that my heart belonged to one person and that was him.

“I love you too, Nikolay. So much it sometimes scares me how much I know that you could easily kill me if you leave, though I always trust that you wouldn’t do it. Deep down, I always know that you would never leave me” I whispered back to him. It was true, there was once a fear in my heart that he would leave me, though I know now that he would rather die than leave me. I have seen him around other woman and how he wouldn’t even spare them a second glace, though I was well aware that he had a different woman every night, sometimes two every day when we first got married. Things had changed so much since that time, naked girls could walk in front of him and he would simply roll his eyes and proceed with whatever he was doing. I have seen it live in front of me, no one had to tell me that to believe it, having been to one of the business galas, Nikolay rarely took part of them. But father had secretly held a slavery business even after Uncle Dimitri and Uncle Ivan had stopped that business department for them, being the most powerful family. The Ivanov family controlled the market, they made sure that this business wasn’t around anymore. But father managed to hide it well, as did the men who took part in it.

Nikolay had made sure to stop the business and set the girls free. All of them were either returned to their families if they had any and for those who didn’t, who had lost their families, or have been sold by their families for barbaric reasons were put under my and Nikolay’s care until they could get on their feet. The younger girls have been sent to schools and those who wanted to work were either trained to do the job they wanted or sent to a proper university after passing the exams that they needed. None of the girls were harmed since, and we knew that they were all safe. The girls considered us as family, at times some of them would come a visit us, they would send presents during seasons.

“And I’m thankful that you trust that I would die before thinking of hurting you” Nikolay whispered and I smiled at my love who wrapped his arms around my waist. Hugging me tightly, I laid my head on his chest and he smiled tightening his arms around me. He kissed the crown of my head and I smiled at him.

“Come on, how about we go inside, have a little fun before we go home?” Nikolay asked and I raised an eyebrow at his suggestion “you know, I picked your set for this day…”

“I see…” I teased my husband leaning closer to him, our breaths mixing “I would still need to walk, you know that right?”

“Don’t worry, our time begins at night when everyone’s left and I’m sure that I’ll be the one cradling and spoiling you all morning tomorrow” Nikolay teased and I laughed “now, the faster we go inside, the faster I can get this dress off”

“Nikolay!” I laughed and Nikolay smirked.

“What? The dress will come off!” Nikolay laughed and I shook my head at him, his eyes looked down at my lips then my eyes before his arm went under my knee carrying me in his arms “I love you, baby girl”

“I love you too”