His jaw firm, his lips set in a determined line, Vik moved toward her with intent. “I was not ready for marriage and you were not ready for me.”
“I—”
His finger pressing against her lips stopped the argument. “We both had living to do.”
“You were really thinking about this then?” she asked with surprise she couldn’t hide.
“Yes.”
“But you weren’t happy about it.” Wasn’t happy about the memory if his current expression was anything to go by.
“You were eighteen. I was still used to thinking of you as a child. It felt wrong.”
“I was an adult, a grown woman.” But even as she made the claim, she knew that compared to Vik she had been a child.
“You could vote, join the armed forces and take on your own debt. That didn’t mean you were ready for a relationship with a man like me.”
“A relationship, or sex?”
“Same thing when it comes to you and me.”
“Is it?”
“It has always been marriage or nothing between us, Madison.” Vik reached out and traced the line of her bodice, his fingertip never straying from the sapphire-blue taffeta of her dress to the skin of her bosom.
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t move away. “Because of AIH.”
“Because my grandfather raised me to be a man with a sense of honor.” The “unlike Frank Beck” went unsaid, but she heard it anyway.
Vik would never be like the father that had caused both him and his grandparents so much grief and disappointment.
“You may be a shark, Vik, but you’re an honest one.”
He smiled wryly, his fingertip resting on the point of the V dipping between her breasts. “And I don’t eat guppies for breakfast.”
“Am I a guppy?” she asked breathlessly.
“No.” Satisfaction burned in his dark gaze. “You are a twenty-four-year-old woman.”
The emphasis he placed on the word woman was a conversation all in itself.
“You planned to marry me before Perrygate ever happened.”
“I did.” Vik looked with significance down at the custom ring on her finger and she caught on.
There was no denying the truth in front of her eyes. “You really did have the rings made for me.”
“I do not lie.”
“No, but...” The scope of what he was saying left her grasping for words that would not come.
“Timwater forced me to move my plans forward, but only by a couple of weeks.”
“You were going to ask me to marry you?”
“I planned to date you first,” he said with some wry humor, almost self-deprecatingly. “We needed to rebuild the rapport we once had.”
His thinking made him a different man than her father in ways she didn’t feel like enumerating, but wouldn’t deny. “You recognized before Jeremy did that the only way my father would have an heir to leave in charge of the business is if I married him.”
“Yes.”
“So, you made plans to play on my father’s desire to leave his legacy to family.” It was brilliant. And manipulative.
But he’d already shown that as important as his own plans for AIH were to Vik, he would not ignore Maddie’s happiness. He’d offered to buy her a building for her dream as a wedding gift.
Calculated? Maybe, but for her benefit, not to her detriment.
Vik’s silence was answer enough. Not only had he strategized, but he’d also started working on her father already. Jeremy had come to the whole “his daughter must marry to save herself and the company’s reputation” pretty darn quickly otherwise.
“I’m not sure how I feel about this,” she admitted.
She understood. To an extent.
But it still felt like she’d been maneuvered.
Vik’s touch finally strayed entirely from her dress to the upper swell of her breasts, tracing the same path as before, only along her skin this time. “While you are deciding, take into account that if you had been a different woman, my plans would have taken a different direction.”
She shivered, her breath quavering in her chest until another thought came to her. “You would have taken AIH out from under my father?”
Horrified because as much as she didn’t get her father, she loved him, and she was certain Vik would have done exactly that. Rather than allow a stranger to come in and take over what he considered to be his.
Vik shrugged, neither confirming, nor denying. “It was not necessary.”
“You said Jeremy is your friend.”
“He is.”
“But you would still take his company.”
“I would not have betrayed him.”
No. That wasn’t Vik’s style. “You still would have figured out a way.”
“Does that upset you?”
“I said before that you’re ruthless.”
“This is not news.”
No, it really wasn’t. “My mind doesn’t work like yours.”
“Make no mistake, you have your own brand of ruthlessness, but if you were too much like me, we would not fit so well together.” Both his hands moved to settle on her waist.
She was distracted by the sensation of his thumbs brushing up and down against her lower ribs. “You think we fit?”
“I know we do.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t just want the company. You want me, too.” Not just sex with her, but Maddie as a complete person.
At least the Madison Archer he knew about. What would Vik think of Maddie Grace?
“You will support my dreams in a way a woman of less strength could not do.”
“Your plans would have been really messed up if I’d picked one of the other candidates Jeremy put forward.” She gave in to the irresistible urge to poke at the bear.
Vik’s gorgeous mouth twisted in disdain. “You were never going to choose another man.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I know.”
“Another word for excessive confidence is arrogance.”
“I prefer honest.”
She laughed softly and then had a revelation. “You manipulated the choice of candidates.”
“I was not expecting Maxwell Black.”
“Neither was I.” And she still wanted to know what the man had done to Romi. “He’s intense.”
“He’s a good businessman.”
“Is he honorable?”
“Yes.”
“As honorable as you?”
Vik considered his answer for a second. “I would do business with him on a handshake.”
“Good to know.”
“Why? Considering your options?” He didn’t sound too worried by the prospect.
“According to you, there are no other options.”
“True.” Vik looked like he was considering what he was going to say next. “We grew up together.”
“What? Like in the same neighborhood?”
“Same Russian-American-dominated street, same school, same afternoons spent in activities sponsored by the Russian cultural center.”
“Were you friends?”
“We still are...of a sort.”
“You’re too alike to be really close.”
“We jockeyed for the top place in class until we went to different universities.”
“No one else had a chance.”
“No.”
Maddie bit her lip, but finally decided she would be honest about her concerns. “Romi dated him.”
Vik’s gaze flared. “I see.”
“He’s intense,” Maddie repeated.
“Are they still dating?”
“No.”
“Then...”
“I don’t need to be worried?”
“He is a good man.”
When it was Viktor Beck making the claim, Maddie believed him.
“Are you really spending the night?” she asked, focusing on what mattered most in the present moment.
“Yes.”
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“After a single day.” One day in which they had decided to get married, made that decision public and negotiated a future they could both live with.
“In one respect, but between us?” He pulled her body close so they shared heat. “Tonight is the culmination of ten years.”