“You must be Georgie,” the man says, stepping into the house without an invitation.
“I am.”
He holds his hand out to shake mine, then, when he has me in his grasp, he pulls me closer and hugs me instead. “It’s so good to meet my son’s wife. I must admit, I was a little surprised, because I only found out about the marriage yesterday.”
His father. This is his father.My heart races and I swallow hard, straightening my back as I step away from him.
“Are you here to meet with Kristopher? Shall I go find him for you?”
“No, don’t worry yourself with that. I’d rather like to get to know you, too,” he says, his eyes roaming over me. I place my hand over my chest, feeling intensely self-conscious.
“I’m Faiz,” he says, his smile confident.
“It’s nice to meet you in person, Faiz. I’ve heard a little about you.”
“Is that so? All good things, I hope,” he chuckles. There is a way about him that reminds me of Kris; a charm to his voice, his mannerisms.
“Are you sure I can’t go find Kris for you?” I ask, taking a step away from him, fully aware that even if this man’s charming side reminds me of Kristopher, he is nothing like his son, and I should be very wary of interacting with him.
Faiz walks deeper into the house. “I found out about your marriage to my son through one of my colleagues. Can you imagine that? I didn’t even hear about it from my own son.”
I bite my tongue, not wanting to rudely blurt out that his son has been trying to get hold of him and has left a hundred messages.
I don’t know the finer details of their dynamic, but I do know that neither Jess nor Kristopher have love for this man. Fear, anger, resentment, but not love.
“Did you know he was meant to marry someone else? I guess that’s why it came as such a shock to me. I had to come see you with my own eyes.” His voice is edged with bitterness. Even his charm can’t hide it. He is like a child, pouting over a toy he didn’t win.
Did he really just say that Kris was meant to marry someone else? Was he dating someone before all of this happened?
Is that why he’s keeping his distance from me? The marriage really was just for my safety, literally nothing more.
No, surely Kristopher would have said something. Faiz is playing with me. That can’t be true.
“Someone else?” I ask, knowing I’m walking right into his trap. He set the bait on the floor, and I wandered right over it and picked it up.
I can’t help it. The jealous ache in my chest is like a bee sting, sharp and painful.
“Yes, her name is Leora. Her friends call her Leo. She’s fiercely beautiful; honestly, the nickname suits her. She has a fiery temperament and a face and body so exquisite it should be illegal. She grew up in the mafia, so she knows all about it, able to play the games, understanding the business and pleasure of it. Her background means she understands wealth. And status. She would have been the ultimate wife for a Bratva king.
“It’s rather shocking that he chose…something else…when he could have hadperfection.” He lets his eyes roam lazily over me. He’s not even hiding the judgment in them, his distaste for whom his son ended up marrying, instead of the woman who was clearly born to be a man like Kristopher’s wife.
I can picture her in my mind. Tall, elegant, powerful. Absolutely gorgeous. She hosts exquisite events on behalf of her Bratva king. She dresses to kill and never has a hair out of place. She’s perfect. She’s smart. She’s exactly as Faiz has described her. A lioness. And he was probably obsessed with her the moment he met her.
The perfect Bratva wife. It’s what he wanted. It’s why he was so harsh when he told me that. He already had the perfect woman lined up, and my arrival ruined his plans.
It shows how far he’s willing to go for his sister. To save her from being hurt.
I bite down, clamping my jaw shut so that I can’t respond to this horrible man’s provocation. Besides, the lump in my throat as I fight the urge to cry is preventing me from speaking.
It’s crazy how jealous I am over a woman I’ve never met, and a man who never belonged to me in the first place. But it hurts.
“Faiz, you finally decided to respond to any one of my attempts to get ahold of you. I’m so grateful.” Kristopher’s voice interrupts the tension that was building between his father and me. He strides into the foyer, his eyes piercing into his father. “It’s good to see you,” he says, as charming as his father, but with the same bitterness beneath the surface of every word. The unspoken far outweighs the shallow back-and-forth being exchanged here.
I listen as the two men banter, subtle jibes being thrown by his father, insulting Kristopher.
I keep telling myself to stay out of it, but when his father makes a remark that causes a hurt to flicker across Kris’s face, I can’t stop myself.
Faiz sneers, cocking his head to the side and shoving his hands in his pockets. They’ve been discussing our marriage, his father snidely speaking of how wonderful the other woman was. I can’t get a read on how Kristopher felt about her, or how much it bothers him to not be married to her and to be stuck with me instead. He has a strong poker face, masking his emotions from his father. But that flickers, just for a moment, when his father says, “It’s just another choice you fucked up, isn’t it? Another example of how you’ll never be man enough or capable enough to run my businesses or take over from me. The company would be doomed.”
