“You fell for that weak shit?” Lucca starts laughing again. “What, are you ten? Holy fuck, Kon!” He sobered a bit. “Do you think she’s been stalking you all over campus in those stripper heels, waiting for a chance to grope you in front of Mariya? I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“Who cares?” I growled, “There’s bigger issues. First, getting to Mariya to talk to me without shooting me in the face.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be impossible,” Lucca agreed.
“You know you’re not helping here, right?”
He pats my shoulder as he gets up for another drink. “Just being realistic. You’ve got more than Mariya to deal with now. You have the female pillars of fury. Every one of our friends - the women, anyway - would rather set you on fire before letting you get past them to see her.”
Groaning, I rub my eyes again. “I never intended to hurt her.”
“I get it,” he says, “but you know you did.”
“How do I make this right?” I ask.
“What?” Lucca puts his hand behind his ear. “I can’t hear you with that pity dick in your mouth. What do you think you should do?”
“Since we’ve been engaged, I’ve never known if Mariya…” I search for the right words, “hell, if she even liked me. Butwhen we had sex on the train, it changed my fucking DNA. The connection was like nothing I’d ever felt. I know she felt it, too.”
I have to move. I must do something. Every part of me is firing up like I’m ready to go into battle. Even my nervous system knew I loved Mariya before my colossally stupid brain did. Pacing in front of the fireplace, I shout, “I am a fucking idiot! I love her.”
Lucca’s slouching comfortably, finishing off my vodka and grinning as he gives me a thumbs-up. “Took you long enough to figure it out, dipshit.”
Chapter Twenty-One
In which he is going to date her so hard.
Mariya….
“We could poison a bottle of his vodka,” offers Meiying. “You know that Jun has the supplies for it.”
“Fuck that,” Athena is filing her nails into sharp little points. “We drug him and throw a Molotov cocktail through his window. Gets the job done and there’s that little extra something by using a Molotov cocktail on a Russian asshole. It’s almost poetic, really.”
“No, I say straightforward,” cuts in Mala. “You walk up to him wearing steel-toed boots and kick him in the nuts. We all line up to get a kick in. The man will never father children.”
Despite myself, I’m laughing helplessly, even though I know they’re all half-serious. Also, I have been drinking for a while and I’m a happy drunk, thank god, not a weepy one.
“So, what did he do when you walked out of the library?” Athena asks, “I mean, did he give you the ‘I’m so busted’ expression?”
“He looked irritable,” Mala said. “To be fair, it looked like he was trying to unhook her from his arm. When we walked away, I peeked over my shoulder and he was yelling at her.”
“I don’t think he’s been sleeping with Tansey Marchand,” Meiying snorts. “Her family are human traffickers and she’s one of the worst of them. It’s the disrespect, you know? Everyone’s going to be tittering about it by tomorrow morning.”
“Maybe I’ll just order in for the rest of the year,” I sigh.
“Oh, no you will not!” Tatiana snaps. “You will go to breakfast with your head held high and that asshole will never sit at our table again. Neither will Lucca, if he doesn’t have his priorities straight.”
“No, stop that,” I said. “I don’t want you having trouble with Lucca because of my mess withhim.”There’s a sharp, persistent ache in my chest, like something’s bleeding. How stupid can I be? I had made my peace with who he was. Why did this hurt so much?
“What do you want to do,moy drug, my friend?” Tatiana asks kindly, her hand on my arm.
“I want to…” I take another defiant swallow of wine. “I want to finish this year. I’m not letting him ruin this for me. After the whole idiocy of getting mad at me because I saved his life, I never imagined he could be this stupid and cold-hearted, but… he’s not going to break me. So, fuck him. He doesn’t own me. Yet.”
Tatiana’s fingers tighten on her wine glass and I’m concerned she might shatter it. “I think you should call your brother.”
“And tell him what?” I ask, “Konstantin’s been ‘mean to me?’ He flirted with a sleazebag? Hardly grounds for breaking an alliance. People find their own space in arranged marriages allthe time.” I nod firmly. “So will I. But for now, I’m not giving up this chance. I don’t care what anyone says, it can’t hurt as much as… Well, they can’t hurt me.”
Athena raises her glass and we do the same. “To foolish men and the women they do not deserve. Fuck them!”
