Kidnapped from my wedding to a monster, married to a psychopath who just dumps me and runs off, and…I slump sadly on the toilet. That first night, when he put me on his lap and comforted me, he smelled so nice, the solid feel of his thick thighs and chest. It felt… like maybe this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me. It was nothing, I was nothing. Just a pawn that-
I jump half a foot as someone pounds on the door.
“ThatSukin syn,that son of a bitch!”
As I leap up, I stumble against the wrought iron towel holder, which comes loose and slams into the base of the porcelain throne I’d just vacated. It cracks into three pieces and I shriek as I slip in the water, heading toward the door. It slams open and I slide into the man standing there, knocking him over and both of us into the hallway, instantly soaked in the toilet deluge.
Looking down, I see Cameron under me, glaring. “I see you’ve been settling in.”
Indignantly, I struggle free of him. Gracefully leaping to his feet, he grabs my hand and hauls me up like a sack of flour. “Thanks, I guess,” I snap. “Also,poshel ty,screw you.”
I’m covered in toilet water and he’s in a gorgeously expensive suit, looking like sex, and sin, and pain.
“Excuse me?” Cameron’s voice is low and dangerous, and looking around us, I realize we have company. There’s another extremely tall man with dark hair and eyes, wearing a huge grin and a nice suit. He must be a brother.
“I like her,” he says to Cameron. “She’s got this insane energy about her, like a scorpion in a toaster.”
“Dougal, my… wife, Morana Ivanova MacTavish,” Cameron says, looking like introducing me is about as appealing as having his face smashed in with a brick. “This is my younger brother, Dougal MacTavish.”
“I’m the more handsome one, as you can see,” Dougal says, offering his hand.
Looking down at my wet clothes, I shake my head. “I’m sorry, but they’d have to douse you in petrol to get the germs off you. Nice to meet you, I’ll just be… going away now.”
Hurrying up the stairs, utterly mortified and equally enraged, I hear him cheerfully say, “At least she flushed the loo first.”
Chapter Six
In which Morana gains her vengeance via soup.
Cameron…
“You really left a bride as fine as Morana to do business in London?” Dougal laughs at me. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, you’re an eejit.”
“It’s not that simple, you arsehole,” I snap, rubbing my eyes. I’d kept my mind off Morana by working every waking second while I was in London, and I’m fecking exhausted. “I’m not sure what to do with her.”
“Well, you put children in her. You know how that works, right?”
“Thanks, brother. The coach showed us a film in health class twenty years ago, I’m sure I can remember the key points,” I snarl.
“Then what’s the problem?” Dougal helps himself to my scotch. “The girl has to know she traded the hell up by getting you instead of that nasty old feck.”
“I did my research on her, obviously,” I say, “she seemed like your standard Bratva princess, trapped by her arsehole da’. Mom died in childbirth with her. Da’ blamed her and sent her off to boarding school when she was only five. Excellent grades and halfway through a degree in Art History from the Royal Danish Academy when Ivanov pulled her out to marry Stepanov.”
“It’s all making ya’ look better and better,'' he agrees, finishing his drink. “Why aren’t you upstairs right now, naked and makin’ her call out for a higher power?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s complicated?” Dougal scoffs, “Who are you, a fifteen-year-old girl setting up your relationship profile on Facebook?”
“I talked with Cormac the night I took her,” I say. “One of our people in the Ivanov Bratva told him that she knows exactly what Stepanov and her arsehole da’ are into. He said he spotted her at one of the slave auctions, all dressed up, drinking and laughing.”
He makes a face as if someone just took a dump in his lap. “That’s disgusting. Is the source certain? It doesn’t seem likely a Bratva princess would be partying at a slave auction unless she was up next on the block.”
I shrug. It is unusual, but I’ve learned in this business that women can be just as evil as men.
“Who was the source?” Dougal persists.
“Nikandr. He runs low-level security for the Ivanovs.”
