Page 76 of Taken By My Grumpy Pakhan

There was also the mild case of Kazimir charging Collin with assault, insisting he be added to a sex offenders list and blacklisting him everywhere.

The revelation came as a shock to me, and the men in the office didn’t hide the wide berth they gave Kazimir.

Reporting Richmond’s statement to HR was bound to trigger a series of events I didn’t want to discover, and I wouldn’t want to be known as the girl everyone avoided.

However, to my disappointment, Richmond had noted the same errors Anna and I pointed out and claimed to have fixed them in a newer model.

“As usual,” Nikolai said when Richmond was done presenting. “We’ll send samples to the staff and expect feedback. I hope you did everything you claim you did.”

Richmond was as white as a sheet but he nodded, his gaze darting to Kazimir who looked bored out of his mind.

The meeting was dismissed and Kazimir left the conference room with Nikolai for his next meeting in his office.

Thankfully, this did not require my presence but he had insisted I hang around.

I’d been avoiding him since I ran into Svetlana at the boutique, spending most of my time in Caroline’s office and only working in mine while he was away.

If he noticed the distance, he didn’t say, but I was thankful for the lack of confrontation because what would I say?

“I ran into your friend at the mall and she told me you frequently changed women, so I headed home and looked you up, found out she wasn’t lying and now I’m mad? Jealous? Hurt?”

It sounded stupid even to me. And even worse, I was yet to figure it out as Anna advised.

She’d brought up the topic again, reassuring me it was fine to want a man for what he can provide, as she was certain Kazimir was keeping me around for something too.

Despite that, I still couldn’t bring myself to accept the situation.

I knew I was an adult and free to have sex with whoever I wanted and for whatever reason I wanted.

However, this was a situation I had gone into with a very different mindset and motive: to lose my virginity and have sex with the man I had the biggest crush on before dying.

If it were left to me, I’d only have sex with a man I loved and one who loved me back. I wouldn’t jump head first and think later.

But here I was, very much alive and living with the consequences of what was supposed to be a one-night stand, and even worse, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stop.

And it was all my fault. I can’t be mad at him for the nature of our relationship when I was the one who threw sex at him on the first encounter. He probably thinks that’s all I want.

So what do you want?

The question I couldn’t answer resurfaced as I made my way to Caroline’s office.

I was drawn to Kazimir, but I was also scared of him, and I knew I was yet to scratch the surface.

The man controlled an entire crime ring, blew off a man’s fingers in front of me, tried to fuck me with a gun, and somehow presented himself as the perfect businessman to the public.

I knew there was more beneath the surface. I also knew I would find my answers when I dug deeper, but for some reason, I was hesitant.

“The boss has a visitor,” Caroline said as I entered her office.

“Well, he’ll have to wait. He’s in a meeting.”

“She.”

I lifted my eyes. “Sorry?”

“The visitor, it’s a she.”

We both stared at each other for a while.