“He’s calling you beautiful because something happened at dinner?”
Oh, shit.
Well, there goes my head. Anton is about to request it on a spike.
“I...” she trails off, mouth opening and closing in disbelief. “You’re spying on me now?”
“It’s not spying to overhear a conversation.”
“I can’t believe you.”
“Believe it.”
Holy awkward.Who knew a compliment would make the man so salty?
Actually, I could have probably guessed that it would.
This is totally my fault.
Hesitantly deciding to speak up, I clear my throat. “Uhhh, maybe I should just hang up and let you talk?—”
“No,” Anton barks. “Anya, give us a minute.”
Oh, this can’t be good.
“We’re in my bedroom—” she protests, only to be cut off.
“So?”
“Are you telling me to leave my own room?”
“Anya, a minute.”
Well, thisreallycan’t be good.
She looks at me, forcing a smile. “You can hang up on him if he’s rude.”
I fight so hard not to laugh, my chest literally aching from the force of holding it back. I want to comment on how brave she is when it comes to her father, but I refuse to do anything to piss the man off even more.
“You cannot,” Anton tells me gruffly, picking Anya’s phone up off her desk to bring me in closer. He waits until she leaves the room, for the audible sound of her bedroom door to click shut. “What are you trying to do here, Moretti?”
His tone leaves no room for humor or teasing.
“Um, what do you mean exactly?” I ask, smiling weakly.
“You tell her that you wish to be friends, I reluctantly agree to let you communicate with her, and now I overhear you calling her beautiful as if you are trying to court her. So I ask again. What are you trying to do here, boy?”
Okay. Don’t love being called a boy as a twenty-one-year-old man.
But I doubt he would appreciate being told that.
“Sir, I don’t mean to sound like a disrespectful little asshole...but your daughter is beautiful. I’m not telling her that for any reason other than it’s the truth. Friends compliment each other all the time, at least where I’m from. You should see how close Ivan and Jade are. If you think a compliment is suspicious, you’d probably have a heart attack watching those two interact. They cuddle so much that my dad thought Ivan and Dmitri were sharing her.”
His eye twitches. Like no shit,twitches.
He doesn’t find me amusing, because of course he doesn’t.
“I do not trust you, and I do not like you.”
