“I admire your loyalty, but your sense of self-preservation leaves much to be desired.”
“I will make this decision for myself.”
“I told you early on that I would ensure you were safe. I won’t renege on that promise.”
She fluttered her hand, brushing my concerns away. “That was a long time ago.”
“It was yesterday morning.”
“Still.”
“Misguided loyalty to me will result in you being killed, horribly,terribly.You didn’t see the rest of the video. I don’t understand why you won’tjust gofor your own safety.”
“But you don’twantme to go, right?”
“God, no, and I never should have admitted that. I should have been increasingly abusive so you would leave. I should have driven you away.” I heard myself speaking the truth, and yet despaired at the thought of the pain and then hate in her eyes. “I should have manipulated you as I manipulate everyone else in my life, to keep them and myself from being murdered.”
Her wide-eyed glance of sympathy at my words was infuriating because I’d set my cause backagain.
“No,”I told her. “No. When you grabbed my phone, I should have doneanythingto stop you, but I didn’t want to hurt you. I should have convinced you to leave, lied and manipulated and ripped your proverbial heart outto make you leave,including having Ueli drag you out. Hewill.I will tell him to, and hewill.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“I don’t see why you won’tsave yourself.”
This circular argument was why we were still swathed in blankets, bickering, entirely unsuitably attired and still tousled from sleep, when fists pounding on the suite’s exterior door rattled the walls.
Chills washed over me.
The bedroom door was still shut and locked, though Ueli had arrived an hour before.
My hands strayed across the bedcovers, reaching for Lexi. I shifted my center of mass toward and in front of her, ready to tuck her under my body if the shooting was beginning, in position to fight if they tried to take her. I could fight. I’d been trained to resist abduction since childhood.
My bloodline was too valuable to be allowed to be stolen.
My heart pumped harder. I was ten toes down and ready to leap at whoever came through that door.
But the bullets and the fight did not materialize.
Instead, low voices muttered in the other room.
Ueli knocked on the door. “Mr. Romanov, your lawyers say they have an appointment with you at your request. They are here.”
Dear God, my fucking lawyers had arrived just like I’d told them to, dammit.
Lexi’s dark eyebrows lifted, and she turned from where she’d been watching the door, too. “Oh, yeah! The lawyers with the post-nup contract. You said you’d sign it this morning.” She leaned on her hands, glaring right into my eyes like a laser to my brain. A wily smile curved her luscious mouth. “Youpromised.”
Ah, fuck me.“Fine.”
CHAPTER 3
lawyers
LEXI
The lawyers were assembled in the living room, judging me with stinky side-eyes as I trudged out of the bedroom.
Yes, I’d thrown on some clothes and brushed my teeth. I’m a civilized Midwesterner. I wouldn’t bobble around braless in front of strangers.
