Trusting A Stranger. Melinda Di Lorenzo

would agree or did you have someone else to ask if I didn’t?” Luke asked.

      “I thought it best to be prepared for anything,” Viktor said. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

      “Agreed,” Luke said. “We’ll do this today.”

      “Today?” Karina echoed, eyes wide. Even Viktor seemed surprised.

      Luke shot her a glance. “Is there a reason to wait?”

      “No.” Of course there wasn’t. It was just happening so fast. Two minutes ago she hadn’t even known his answer. Now they would be married today, perhaps within hours.

      “There’s no waiting period to be married in Virginia,” he said. “With any luck, we should be able to find a chapel where we can have the ceremony. I’ll call my assistant and have her find one. She can call us on the way with the information. It would look better if we did that rather than have it done at a courthouse or a justice of the peace. The marriage might seem more genuine if we went to all that trouble to be married in a religious setting.”

      “Good idea,” Viktor said.

      “Should we go?” Luke asked, looking solely at her. And it occurred to her that, in a way, he was now asking her to marry him.

      Her earlier doubts about whether she could go through with this even if he agreed came back in a rush. If she wanted to stop this, now would be the time to do it.

      Agreeing to this would mean placing her life in this man’s hands. She’d done it with Sergei, and to a lesser degree Viktor. But they were practically family. This man was a stranger. A man she knew nothing about but the little Viktor had told her. Including the fact that Viktor trusted him. Was that enough?

      But it wasn’t as though she could turn back now. It was she who had asked him. And there were no other options available to her. This was her only chance. The stranger or certain death.

      So why did the choices seem equally perilous?

      She forced herself to swallow, to lift her head and keep every trace of doubt from her face.

      “Yes,” she said.

      And with that, her future was secure.

      For now.