Page 267 of Vexatious Queen

She looked down, her hand playing with my shirt.

“Should I have considered taking him back then? I never even contemplated it. Now I’m second-guessing everything. Was Christov a mean father after I left? Did he poison Sabastian so badly against Ren and me that he’d want to hurt us? I just have so many questions, and…”

“You don’t think he belongs in prison?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sadly. “Nash thinks he does, and honestly, I haven’t seen him in so long that I simply don’t know anymore. But the betrayal that was in his eyes…Eddie, between him and Ren and you, I feel like all I’ve done is hurt those I care about.”

“I’ll talk to Nash. I may have some information that will buy Sabastian a lighter sentence, but it should come from Nash. He and the local sheriff have a…complicated relationship, but he does trust him,” I said, and her eyes lit up.

“You’d do that? For Christov’s son?”

“I’d do it for you.”

Ana cupped my face and consumed me like I was water in a desert. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight.

“I prayed to God every night to hold you like this again. This is a miracle, no matter how it happened,” I said, against her lips, smiling as I glanced at the door. “Has everyone left?”

“Yes, they left not long after dinner. You were on a conference call,” Ana said, pulling my tie off over my head and slipping it on instead.

“I’ll text Lilya and say goodnight. It’s been a crazy day.”

Ana slowly stood and sat on my desk. The dress she had on rode up just enough to tease me. Showing me nothing but promising the world. She placed one stocking-clad foot on my thigh as the devil danced in her eyes.

“I think we should break in this desk,” she said, running her foot up my leg.

“Is that so?”

Growling, I grabbed her calf, and Ana sucked in a ragged breath as she nodded. Standing between her legs, I could hardly think straight. She’d always had the power to do this to me. Wiping my mind of anything but her. The rest of the world could be falling around us, and I wouldn’t care as long as we had each other.

Ana leaned back on her elbows, my tie pointing like an arrow between her thighs. God help me. She could walk me to the edge of a cliff and tell me to jump, and I’d do it. I had done so to have her, to save her, to protect her, and I’d do it all over again. True love never died, and Ana was the love of my life.

“You look beautiful,” I said.

My phone rang, and I glared at it. It came up as Mikhailov Industries. Ana saw the ID and sat up. She grabbed the phone, hit talk, and then speaker.

“What the hell do you want, Vadin?”

“Just the person I wanted to talk to. I’m done running from you, daughter,” Vadin said.

His self-satisfied voice filled my office, and my blood instantly began to boil.

I’d fantasized about putting a gun to Vadin’s head and pulling the trigger all during my birthday dinner. When Ana had first burst through the doors, I thought it was just part of my elaborate daydream.

“It is about time you stopped being a coward and faced me,” Ana said.

“You mean like how you’ve faced me all these years? Oh, that’s right, you were the one running and hiding.”

“That was different, and you know it. I loved you and trusted you. You were my hero, and you crushed all of it for money, power, and favors. And for what? For you to die alone and unloved?”

“Your mother might have been angry with me, but she loved me,” Vadin said.

Ana stood from the desk and began pacing the room.

“No, she hated you in the end and only stayed because she knew you’d destroy her if she left. She hated what you did to our family, what you did to me. What you did to your grandchild, your flesh and blood.”

“You know how the world works. I do regret not making an effort to get to know Lilya, despite learning that Edmundo is her father. But I don’t regret marrying you to Christov.”

My fists balled, but where I was contained rage, Ana was a volcano. Her long hair bounced behind her as she stomped back and forth across the floor, her face red with anger that burned like lava in her veins.