Anger coursed through me at his highhanded reply.
“Adjust to what?” Mikhail asked. “Staying here indefinitely?”
“Yes. As my woman,” Sergei answered.
My mouth hung open.
My cheeks heated with the flush of fury taking over again.
How dare he?
How fucking dare?—
What?
How the hell can you just say that and think?—
I could barely breathe with how mad I was. I waslivid, trying to absorb the fact that he wanted to imply that I’d be here in his home forever. That I’d be “his woman”. Like I’d be his wife!
Just because you saved me? Twice?
Out of debt?
I wished I could regret ever getting close to him. Ever letting him have a piece of me. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t regret that any more than I could regret the fact that he’d cared to save me at all.
Stay here and marry you?
I gritted my teeth, glaring at the wall.
I think not!
There was no way in hell that I would want to trust the man who’d killed my husband, not to the extent that I’d ever allow him to replace him.
25
SERGEI
Having Natalie and Maisie back in my home comforted me. I didn’t have to wonder if they were unharmed or provided for. I didn’t have to worry if Natalie was overwhelmed. I saw with my own eyes that they were safe with me.
Unlike the first time that I brought Natalie here, she fell into step and got with the program immediately. We didn’t go through another trial of her being stubborn. She didn’t protest that I wanted her in my home.
It was as though she expected it now.
Or she had accepted that I would expect her to be here.
Not that she wanted to.
Nope. Not at all.
Her coolness and indifference to me didn’t change. Things had shifted between us since she ran off, and it didn’t seem like she would ever want to return to the intimacy and friendship that we had built and fostered before.
It was hard to have hope that we would ever get back to that.
We didn’t talk about why she had left. Having a discussion about what happened to her husband was still on my to-do list. I wanted to talk to her. I wished we could be on better terms.
Each time I talked with my uncle, my cousin, or my brother about how badly I wanted to clear the air between me and Natalie, they all cautioned me to wait a little longer. To let her come to me about it when she was comfortable.
My uncle had a passive approach to the situation.
