Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
“I don’t know how many women you’ve slept with since me. But does it matter? Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“I haven’t cheated!” he roars, freezing both my heart and my astuteness. “I haven’t been with anyone since you.” He doesn’t give me a chance to respond to the sheer honesty in his tone or to portray my absolute shock. “You’ve put my head in such a fucking spin that goals I’ve been working toward since I was five were forgotten in an instant. I backflipped on every pledge I’ve made in the past thirty years in under twelve fucking hours. Nothing mattered.” I hear his jaw tightening more than I see it. “Nothing matters but you.”
With my eyes adjusting to the dark, I have no trouble seeing the truth in his narrowed gaze when his eyes connect with mine, but I’m as stubborn as a mule, and perhaps a smidge heartbroken.
“You were fingering me while your wife was being inseminated with your sperm.”
“No,” he immediately denies, shaking his head.
“I saw your contract, Andrik. It stated the date in thick black ink for all to see.” I grit my teeth when he continues to shake his head. “Then why did you send me away? Why did you stop? Why did you sneak into my room in the middle of the night under the cloak of darkness?” With my heartache overtaking the zing of intimacy thickening my veins, I blurt out my next question without evaluating the possible consequences it could cause. “Why did you pick her instead of me?”
For the first time, vulnerability flares through his eyes. “I didn’t pick her.”
“You married her, Andrik! She’s your wife.”
“No,” he denies, talking through a clenched jaw. “She’s a prop. A ploy. A measure to get answers. I don’t want her.” When he steps closer, my heart thuds in my ears. “I want you.”
“Don’t,” I beg when he cups my jaw with the same hand he used to bring me to climax.
He doesn’t listen, and as much as I shouldn’t admit this, I’m glad.
“And you want me too.” His thumb slips over my lips, diverting the pulse deafening me to between my legs. It isn’t solely his touch prompting the positive responses of my body. It is also what he says next. “I’ll call the wedding off. I will find another way to get answers.”
The mask I’m growing to hate as much as I loathe the woman I’ve become slips over his face quicker than I can snap my fingers when we’re interrupted. “Andrik? Are you in here?”
The blonde who was conducting interviews in the east wing pushes open the door, streaming unnatural light into the room and highlighting the manic tic in Andrik’s jaw. “Not now.”
She takes his snarky tone in stride. “I know you requested not to be disturbed, but it is extremely urgent.”
The utter desperation in her voice announces the end of our exchange mere seconds before Andrik vocalizes the same. “Mikhail is waiting for you outside.” After floating his eyes over my face for the quickest second, he checks that his fly is right before he stalks to the door being held open by the blonde. “Straight home, милая.”
“Andrik—”
“Straight. Home!”
He exits first, confident enough in his assertiveness that I’ll never disobey a direct order.
It is a pity he’s underestimated how stupid I become when pushed down the totem pole of importance.
35
ANDRIK
“What happened?”
My father lifts his hanging head, but my answer comes from Dr. Makarand, who is standing at Zakhar’s bedside, looking glum. “My guess is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It is when the muscle cells in the heart’s lower chambers thicken, causing an abnormal heart rhythm.”
His response blindsides me. Not because of what he says, but how he started his reply. “Guess? I’m paying you one hundred thousand dollars a week to guess the cause of an almost five-year-old having a heart attack!”
My father signals for me to calm down. I’m too worked up from my fight with Zoya to listen. I have a heap of adrenaline to disperse, and no one to take it out on but the man standing in front of me.
“How much will it take for you not to guess?” I don’t give him a chance to respond. “Two hundred thousand a week? Three?” He looks cocky until I say, “A bullet?”
I step up to him, my chest heaving with anger. I’m not solely devastated for what this could mean for Zakhar. I hate that I had to leave Zoya in a vulnerable state.
She should come first, but shit like this is forcing her into the background.
“Will that give you enough incentive to stop fooling around and do your fucking job!”
Dr. Makarand has bigger balls than I give him credit for. “From the whispers I’ve heard, I’m not the one stalling proceedings.”
I crack him in the face, splitting his nose, before my father pulls me away from him.