Come to Daddy (Love Don't Cost a Thing, #1)

by Brianna Hale

“Ljubim te, Ciara,” I say softly into her hair. I look down at her, sleeping in my arms, as peaceful and beautiful as an enchanted princess. I’ve never said those words, in English or Slovenian, but they feel so right, whispered in the darkness as we speed through the night. I love her, and she loves me.

“Because my name is Mikhail Ravnikar. Damir Ravnikar is my brother.”

“You love me. You told me so. I live in your heart as surely as you live in mine. Forever.”

Looking back, I don’t know how we made it past that first date. I disliked her as much as she disliked me. I didn’t know then the pleasures of talking to Ciara, of making her smile. I wonder if I ever will again.

She’s a strong young woman who’s used to taking care of herself, but all the same it must have been a shock, knowing that she only had her own wits and resources to protect herself against a man like Damir.

but that doesn’t mean that everything about our relationship was a lie. My feelings for her aren’t a lie.

“Ciara. Everything I said and did after our first date was the truth. I wasn’t pretending to enjoy your company or find you beautiful. I thought about you every minute of every day, wishing I could do more for you.

I set out from the beginning to protect her and I’m going to do it whether she likes it or not.

When I was little I thought of truth as some kind of omnipotent god, that if only you revered it enough you would eventually discover all the secrets you wanted.

“It’s hard to get rid of someone when they’ve been part of your life for so long. You have cut out part of yourself to do it. Even when their love is full of poison, it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“I told you I admire ambition. Everyone has ambition. I do. You do. Your parents, my parents.

What sets people apart are the lengths that they’re willing to go to and the rules they will break to get what they want.

That’s what makes some people dangerous. They don’t believe that they’re bound by the law or the rules that govern societ...

Then there are the illegal things. Embezzlement. Money laundering. Murder. Anathema to you and all decent people, but not to tho...

I need Misha right now because he’s going to keep me alive while Damir is at large, but I have the feeling he’s not going to give up on us no matter what I say to him.

She’s stopped putting on makeup and curling her hair. The clothes she wears are loose, comfortable things that make the daytime heat bearable.

She’s different, and never looked more beautiful. I wish I knew how to tell her that without her thinking I want something from her.

Because I do want something from her. I want everything, with a longing so powerful it keeps me up at night. I think about touching her, but most...

What if we’d been left alone until she loved me so much that the truth hadn’t immediately burned everything to the ground?

All the same, my chest feels hollow with the need to hold her in my arms. My lips remember the feel of hers and I crave one last kiss from her. A kiss that means goodbye, forever. But I can’t even have that.

I imagine his arms around me, holding me close and whispering to me in English and Slovenian that everything’s going to be all right.

I’ve wanted to go to him a thousand times, rail at him, cry, have him fuck me, hard, to get all the anger and frustration out.

I know he feels it, too, the unfairness of what’s happened to us. That we were thrown together in impossible circumstances and found ...

“You have given me more life, more happiness, than anyone I’ve ever known. Ljubim te. Moje srce je resnično in srce je za vedno.”

“I said, My heart is true, and my heart is forever. I don’t know how I will live without your sweetness. I have known you, and now you will be an open wound in my heart for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t want you to go,” I say in a cracked whisper. “I won’t die, but I will be an open wound, like you said. I will bleed out and live a half life from this moment on. A cursed life.”

“You will always live in my heart, for as long as it keeps beating,” he says fiercely. “But I have to go, so that one day you can be free.”

He kisses my quivering, tear-streaked mouth and for a moment the world comes to a perfect stillness, like a raindrop suspended in the sky.

There’s just Misha and his arms around me, and I want to live here forever, f...

“Ljubica, you will never be free unless I do this.” “I don’t want to be free. I just want to be with you.”

Then he’s holding me so tightly, kissing me like we’re drowning in each other and we never want to be saved.

“Then we will be fools here, together. I’d rather die by your side than let you go.”

“Ljubim te,” I whisper, and he pulls me even tighter against him until I’m devoured by his embrace.

His heat and love burns through me and I feel that small, hopeful glow that he lit within me flicker into life once more. Happiness.

Love wins out in the end. Love will always win. I will believe that...

We are fools. But we’re fools in love.

It’s pure desperation, this need to be wrapped around each other with nothing in between us.

I want his scent all over me. But soon even that closeness is not enough, and we need more.

“I’m never letting you go now. Do you understand, ljubica? I’m not letting you out of my sight and I don’t have it in me to leave again.”