I am a walking contradiction—a mess of lethal want and bone-deep hatred.
I start for the door, my movements jerky and uncoordinated, but at the threshold I can’t help it. I stop. I turn my head just enough to spare him one final glance.
Arrogant wicked stupidly handsome annoying?—
Razvan doesn’t even look up from his papers at first. Then, slowly, he lifts his head. He leans back in his chair, his expression one of bored, dark amusement.
He chuckles, a low, grainy sound that makes my skin prickle.
“Careful,zayka,” he says, his voice a smooth, dangerous silk. “If you kill me in your head any harder, you might actually give yourself a migraine. You should really try to control yourself.”
My breath hitches. The fact that he can read the internal massacre I’m dreaming of makes my blood boil.
“Go to hell, Razvan,” I whisper, my voice finally finding its edge.
His smirk only widens, a cold, victorious flash of teeth. “I’m already there, Lena. I’m just making sure you have a seat right next to me.”
He drops his gaze back to his desk, dismissing me as if I’m nothing more than a minor annoyance. The dismissal is worse than the touch. It ignites a fresh wave of anger that burns through the lingering haze of lust.
I turn and walk away, my steps heavy and trembling. I don’t look back again. I can’t afford to.
I hate him. I hate the way he knows me. I hate the way he moves me.
And most of all, I hate that as I retreat toward the safety of the guest wing my traitorous, aching body is already counting the seconds until he decides to summon me again.
14
RAZVAN
I’m getting married today.
I’ve said the words to myself four times since I woke up, and they still don’t produce a single recognizable human reaction. No nerves. No anticipation. Just a flat, factual weight sitting in my chest, heavy as a lead slab.
In the mirror, Lyosha is obsessively straightening his tie for the third time. Beside him, Dmitri examines his cufflinks with the smug satisfaction of a man who considers a wedding, even a forced one, primarily as an opportunity to look exceptional.
Mike, however, isn’t looking at his reflection. He’s looking at me.
I sigh. “Say what you have to say, Mike, and stop glaring daggers into my fucking skull.”
Mike exhales through his nose, his gaze dropping to the floor for a second before snapping back to mine. “Why are you putting her in a prison and dressing it up as a wedding, Razvan?”
There it is. The question that’s been vibrating in the room like a live wire.
“She has my son.” I adjust my jacket, my movements precise and cold. “I spent five years tearing the world apart looking for her. There is no version of this reality where I let her walk around loose in the world with my child. It’s not happening.”
“You could court her,” Mike says, his voice dangerously level. “Actually try. Woo her. Do this the right way instead of?—”
“Woo her?” I turn around slowly, fixing him with a look that would have sent a lesser man reaching for his weapon. “Do I look like a man whowoospeople, Mike? Do I give off that particular energy to you?”
Dmitri makes a sound from the corner that is definitely a laugh converted at the last second into a cough.
“It’s not the worst idea,” Mike says, refusing to be deterred. “She’s not a prisoner. She’s the mother of your son. There’s a difference and you know there’s a?—”
“This is part punishment,” I say. Flat. Final. “She kept my son from me for five years. She ran. She stole from me. There are consequences.”
I say the words. I mean them.
Mostly.
