His mouth twisted cruelly. “Anya is one of them.”
“Then what’s this? I could have found my way to the bedroom by myself.” Then I added with a sneer, “No need to tuck me in.”
“Jesus Christ, you test my patience.” He stalked toward me, and even if he said he wouldn’t touch me, I still recoiled. Kirillwas all stone face and expressionless now. His icy eyes could freeze me in place. “You’re ruining the delivery.”
“The delivery of what?”
He backed me against the wall, leaned in, and caged me with his arms yet kept his body from touching me. “You’re right. I tricked you, although this would have been more satisfactory if you had fallen for my courtship.”
I laughed maniacally. “You seem to have the wrong concept of courtship because nowhere did I feel courted.”
“Because I’ve never done it, and I suck at faking it. Besides, you have a nose for bullshit. You’re here for my revenge. Kolya and Anya were my family in Russia. Now Kolya is in jail, and he has lost his anonymity to do the work he was trained to do for the bratva.”
“What? Kill people for a living?” I scoffed. “He may have been wrongly accused of being the Mistress Strangler, but don’t tell me he hasn’t killed hundreds.”
“That’s mob business.”
“Doesn’t justify it in my eyes. And why do you still blame me for Kolya? How is it my fault? It was your own people who framed him.”
“But they’re dead, and you’re the next best target.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
Kirill leaned back. “So, yes. You’ll be my wife. You will present yourself dutifully as a pakhan’s wife. I don’t need to fuck you, and you will have no say in who I fuck.”
“Does that mean?—”
“Let another man touch you, and I’ll gut him right in front of you.”
“How is that fair?” I gasped.
“This is my revenge, remember? Every humiliation you suffer is a debt to be paid.”
“Because technically, you can’t kill me.”
“Correct.”
I was fuming, seething. The arrogance. It reiterated how much I hated men like him. But it was just a year. What Kirill didn’t know was that it took more than his having an affair to humiliate me. Humiliation meant I cared.
Did I?
No. Fuck him.
Wait, no.
Fuck that.
His hand reached out as if to touch my face, but I flinched, so he dropped it and backed away.
I squirmed under the intensity of his gaze. What else did he want? He won. And that irritated the hell out of me. I also needed him out of this room because I was suffocating in this farce of a wedding dress.
“I’m going to fulfill my commitment to this marriage. Unlike you, I have no problem abstaining from sex for a year. I will not be the one to break my vows.”
“You’re giving me permission to cheat?”
“Do I have a choice, Kirill? My hands are tied, and I don’t want a war.”
“Such a sacrifice.”
