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This time, he doesn’t try to draw me back into him.
“I need to know what’s going on.” I wrap the blanket tighter around me, sliding some of it off Andrei’s body. He doesn’t react, keeping perfectly and scarily still.
“We’re planning a wedding.”
A flare of anger lashes inside my heart. “That’s not good enough.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s a half truth, Andrei Leonov. You owe me the full truth. As your wife, I demand it.”
He sits up so suddenly that I flinch. Flipping me onto my back, he smiles mirthlessly down at me. “You’re not my wife yet, Valentina Violetta Baranova,” he snaps, using my full name against me the same way I tried to use it against him. “I might call you zhena, but make no mistake. Until I vow my heart, body, and soul to you in three days, you can’t make demands of me as my wife.”
I struggle against his hold, but he grips my wrists tight and bundles them over my head.
“You said I had power,” I yell, suddenly bitter. “You said you loved me.”
A man who loves me wouldn’t keep secrets from me.
Andrei’s nostrils flare. “I love you more than I love myself, Valentina. More than I love power. More than I love fucking you raw.” His eyes scale my body, latching on to each love mark he’s made across my skin. “If you want to know something, my beautiful, stubborn woman, you ask me. Do not make demands about truths you aren’t ready to hear.”
“Fucking tell me, then!” I writhe against his grip, bucking my hips and thrashing about. “I need to know! Why do you all hate my grandmother? Why is Ezra torturing people to death? What the hell is so intimidating about Liam?”
“Do not say that name in my fucking bed,” Andrei snarls.
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d just?—”
He captures my mouth, a rough force of teeth and tongue and anger. It rolls off him in waves, choking me from the sheer force of it. When he pulls back, he’s breathing hard, his eyes dark pits of violent rage.
“Your ex-boyfriend”—he laughs coldly—“is a fucking joke. If he wasn’t, you would have never come back to me. You would have sat on his cock and swallowed his loads like a good fucking girl, as meek as a mouse beneath his boot.” He grips my chin, digging his fingers into my cheeks. “But I know that you’re a bad fucking girl. Asking questions. Making demands. Trying to dig up secrets.”
Heat lightning flashes behind the window curtain, illuminating Andrei’s face. Behind the anger, hidden in the cracks of his mask, is fear. Crippling, intense, agonizing terror. His breaths are shallow and shaky as he lashes out with it.
I say his name as best I can from beneath his grasp and latch on to his hands. Gripping them tight, I drag them from my face and throw his body off mine. Tackling him to the bed, I wrap my entire body around him from behind, holding on as tight as I can.
“I’m not going anywhere. Calm down.” I dig my body weight into his back, hoping he can’t feel how hard my heart is pounding. “I promise, Andrei, no matter what you tell me, I’m not leaving you. You can’t say anything that will scare me off.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, his body stiff as a board as he wrestles with his emotions. Slowly, the tension in his shoulders relaxes, and he draws a deep, staggering breath. With his head thrust into the pillow, he makes a strangled sound and balls his hands into tight fists.
“Shhhh. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Shhhh.”
I rake my fingers through his hair in soothing strokes, scratching his scalp at the base of his neck. When his entire body slumps, I feel safe enough to climb off him. He keeps his face buried in the pillow, even as he reaches for my hand.
Grasping it, I lace our fingers together and press a kiss to his knuckles. “I’ll be okay, no matter what you tell me, muzh.” The Russian word for husband is clunky on my tongue, but it gets Andrei to turn his head toward me.
He takes a deep breath and holds it. “Katya sent you the letter, Valentina. The day you left, she had someone plant it in your room.”
“That’s impossible. She wasn’t even at the wedding. She was...” I squint, trying to remember why she was missing. “She wasn’t there until I walked out. She had a car waiting, and...”
She had a car waiting for me.
I always thought she’d just arrived at the venue, but maybe she was waiting for me to walk out of it.
“Why would she do that?” I ask, chewing on my bottom lip. “That doesn’t make any sense. She bought a house out of the city and let me live with her for years. No one wants their granddaughter living with them for that long.”
“Unless she has a motive.” Andrei snorts, the color returning to his face. “Let me guess, she introduced you to Liam, too?”
“Well, that’s—” I purse my lips. “She has a lot of friends.”
