“Your estate?” I parrot.
Jenica looks at me. “Yes. We live in the official Rozanov estate. The one passed down to him from Anton. It’s, maybe, three times? This size?” She waves her hand as if it’s no big deal, all the while making sure the rock on her finger catches light. Probably in the hopes it’ll blind me in the process. “He told me he had another estate, but this is much quainter than I pictured.”
“When… when did you… when did he—” I stutter out the words, unable to form the question I am trying to ask.
She looks over at me with a smile, plopping down on the other side of the couch and sending a cloud of plumeria perfume into the air. “When did he propose?” she asks, looking down at the ring adoringly. “Right after you left. He was devastated.”
“By me leaving?” I ask.
Jenica tears her eyes from her ring long enough to look at me. “What? No. Because his best friend was in the hospital. Grazed by a bullet during a little disagreement.”
My eyes shift from bewildered to annoyed. “He wasn’t grazed. It was a direct shot. I’m surprised he lived. There was so much blood…”
“You were there?” She twists her nose like it’s the most grotesque thing she’s ever heard.
“I was. So was my brother.” Venom bubbles up my throat. “And Tristan. Who also disappeared after that, from what I heard.”
Jenica dodges that. No surprise there. “You really are a wild one, aren’t you? Bratva women never involve themselves in the men’s work. It’s… unbecoming.” Her smile turns less sweet, more poisonous. “Our job is to support them. Stroke their egos. Make them look good, you know?”
I give her a deadpan look. “I think their egos are doing just fine without any stroking.”
Her mask cracks a little before she goes on. “Anyways, Ransome finally came to his senses once you were gone. With no moredistractions,he was able to make the right decision. We were married within weeks, a huge and elaborate wedding, no expense spared. Obviously,” she laughs again, twinkling the ring at me.
“Obviously,” I repeat with a coy smile. Meanwhile, my hand is on my belly, my fingertips brushing across it. Her eyes, whether they want to or not, can’t stop watching the motion, and I know I’m stabbing straight into the chink in her armor.
“So he loves you,” I say, but it’s more of a question.
“Of course he loves me. We’re married. I would think that’s implied.”
I tip my head side to side. “Arranged marriages don’t always imply emotional involvement.”
With that, her smile is immediately replaced by a tight scowl and a cold glare. “You don’t know anything about us. You don’t know anything about women like me.”
“And that’s fine,” I say with my hands up. “I have no desire to.”
“Women like me are the only type of women that men like Rozanov will marry.”
I swallow hard, but make myself stand so that we’re face to face. “He may not be married to me, but he’s committed to me,” I tell her with my hand still on my belly.
Jenica smiles bitterly. She tips her chin down in a patronizing motion. “He’s not committed, sweetie. He’s obligated. There is a very big difference. You are carrying his child. A Bratva heir. And that is all he cares about.”
Blood boils in my veins, but for the sake of the baby, I stay calm.
“I think you’ve overstayed your welcome,” I tell her.
“I was about to say the same thing to you. But I think you still have about three months before I can actually send you packing. And trust me, I will.”
Jenica walks out with a smile. I slam the door behind her.
Only then do I let my true feelings show.
It starts by me throwing a vase of flowers across the room and it ends with me collapsing on the couch, my pulse racing, tears flowing and my heart breaking.
Jenica is a bitch. Plain and simple. She came here to get under my skin. Honestly, it wouldn’t have worked if it weren’t for that ring.
But the ring changes a lot of things.
Ransome didn’t tell me he was married. Probably because he knew that if he had, I would have told him to kick rocks instead of agreeing to come back to New York.
