Her chin is high, but her eyes look downward as I caress her cheek softly, remembering the feeling of her lips against mine. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, things have gotten very messy inside my head.
I've lost my way with her. I should be angry and punitive, teach her a lesson about what it means to cross me. But I want nothing more than to tear down every defense she has and find out why she has them. Then teach her what it means to be safe.
The problem is that she's so infuriatingly hard to understand. Mila is angry when I touch her, pissed when I show anotherwoman any attention, and so fucking needy when I expose the raw desire inside her.
"Or did you not like when I had you?"
"It's not the same," she bites out, and I swear there is moisture in her eyes.
So she is jealous. Very jealous.
I can fix that for her very soon, just not tonight. As much as I want to explore it, push her to her limit so I can find the woman who let me ravish her once, all so I can do it again, I can't. Timur is on to something and I have to find out what.
If I'm going to move forward with my plan, I have to have all the facts.
"Go to your room, Mila. Rest. I'll call for you in the morning."
The way her shoulders drop a fraction of an inch shows me the disappointment. Whether she wants what I want or she just wanted to argue her point more, she isn't getting it.
She turns and walks out, closing the door softly behind her, not slamming it like I assume she wants, and I lean back against my desk and stare for a second. She was so ripe for the plucking I could've, and I wanted to.
And dammit that I'm too damn driven by this mystery to take a single moment to indulge. I just have to know. So I message my brother again. He's gotten me this far, and I know with his skills, he can go farther.
Roman: 8:06 PM: I need everything on Vera Volkov by end of week. Every husband. Every death. Financial records, property transfers.
Timur: 8:06 PM: How deep?
Roman: 8:07 PM: All the way down… I have some decisions to make, and what you find out will determine how I go about things.
Timur: 8:07 PM: Understood.
I set my phone down as the undercurrent of thought flows away from Mila and toward this puzzle I'm going to solve. Vera may be entirely innocent of any wrongdoing. It's conceivable that she mistakenly sent Mila to my fight club to retrieve that ring, considering Anton—and Mila's grandfather Milos before him—was the rightful owner. I'm just not buying it.
Something tells me Vera has more going on than she wants anyone to admit. And I'm going to get to the bottom of it.
13
MILA
The nerve of that man! I pace my room as I angrily yank my shirt off, then my slacks. They get thrown across the room before I dig into my dresser and find a nightgown. I can't believe Roman would let her sit right on his lap and not immediately chastise her for such rude behavior.
She was his houseguest, not a stripper sent to give him a lap dance. And the way she babbled on all evening while she ate—and talked with her mouth full of food, too. How gross. Yet he smiled and spoke kindly to her and didn't bother to notice how she was being way too forward.
My bra drops to the floor with my clothing and I tug on my nightgown, too angry to eat the food Rebecca sent up for me, or even think straight, for that matter. Sofi's visit has me entirely undone, even half an hour later as I crawl into bed and punch my pillow to fluff it up a little. And when my head hits that same pillow, I feel tears burning in my eyes.
I don't even know why I'm so mad. Roman is a free man who can make whatever choice he wants. It just ticks me off that Vera isgetting her way yet again. She sends Sofi over to make Roman swoon, and he wines and dines her as if she's royalty, and the entire time, he forced me to watch it all. I had no desire to be in that room watching him smile at her and ask her thoughtful questions.
He never asked me about my father, and he never tried to understand my past and…
I stop myself and blink back the tears as I realize what's really going on. I'm really jealous. Like, so jealously angry, I could slap Sofi silly just for showing up to a dinner at Roman's house, one I was allowed to be a part of too.
God, what is wrong with me? Roman forced me to come to his house and wait on him hand and foot, and yes, he gave me this promotion to being his assistant so I don’t have to scrub toilets, but if he's interested in one of Vera's daughters, that's his right to do so. I can't stop him.
So why did my entire body light on fire when he pushed my hair behind my ear and wish he would touch me more? Why can't I get him out of my head? It's been almost a week and still, every time I’m in the same room with him, I feel awkward and attracted to him.
He doesn't want me.
What happened at his fight club was only because of adrenaline and a near-death experience. Nothing more. Roman thinks of me as his servant, not his potential partner. He is literally dating my stepsisters to get to know them so he can choose which one of them he wants to marry so that when my inheritance passes to Vera, he can snatch it up.
