She fit in with the accounting team. Everyone thought she was a polite delight. My brothers and cousins practically saw her as family already. A mild-mannered sister or cousin.
She wasn’t alone, but it was up to me to explain that to her. I just didn’t know how. Or when. Not without feeling like I was giving up part of my power.
I left my father’s room and returned to the office that was starting to feel more like mine. And just like I did most nights when I was here, I stalked her on the surveillance footage and watched her walk to the guest house. Lev had accompanied hertonight, but I noticed how she didn’t initiate any conversation. She barely replied to anything he might’ve asked her as small talk.
Watching her go back to the guest house every night was just another reminder of how she didn’t completely fit into my future. She wasn’t taking the chance to talk to me yet, if she ever would again. That companionship that we had been building was gone.
But I no longer felt confident about my initial ideas of her. That letting a woman into my life would be an unwelcome complication I couldn’t afford. More than anything, she was a complication because I was denying myself, denying both of us. All because I had gotten it into my head to give her space and hold back.
Generally, letting a woman into my life wouldn’t be a distraction. But Elena wasn’t just a woman I wanted in my bed and in my home. She had the kind of qualities I would want in a partner.
She’s a strong woman.
A smart individual.
Somebody I could trust.
I have been trusting her.
Her offer to help me was the reason that I had taken her on my desk to begin with. But she hadn’t said those words in the way that some women threw themselves at men.
Have I ruined it?
I rubbed my face, aggravated.
Are there any chances that she can still care about me?
That seemed like a stupid question to ask about her attitude toward me.
I’d killed her father.
That was an awfully strong way to make her hate me, wasn’t it?
No answers came to me later in the quiet of the night as I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. My mind was full of thoughts of her. Too many questions lingered in my heart. Missing her had become a full-time job, and I could only imagine how long this could go on for.
How long can I last with her within reach but so far apart from me in all the ways that mattered?
28
ELENA
At the start of the next week, I began to look forward to going to work. That dread that I experienced each morning when I pulled into the parking lot at my father’s firm wasn’t a routine anymore. I didn’t dwell on hating my job or my life.
Iwasstill stuck in a rut. There was no other future for me than being here with the Volkovs as their accountant. Sacha and Igor were running more of the invoices, but I had essentially bootlegged a copy of the programs and software that my father had used. Those copies were now what the Volkovs relied on, and there was still that third-party, middle-man approach to it so the money trails wouldn’t be so easily searchable or trackable.
But I didn’thatemy job.
The further I looked into those previously unclaimed shell companies, the more the mystery got to me.
In a way, it’s like I promoted myself.I almost smiled as I entered the main house to go to the office that had beendelegated as my work space. I hadn’t returned to Adrik’s office again. Not by myself, at least, but that was for the best.
Because nothing’s happening there, El.
He’s a busy, important Mafia boss.
He’s focusing on taking over as the next leader.
He got a piece of what you were offering and that’s it.
