AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Words swam in and out of my ears as he spoke and I only realised long minutes later that the call had ended and he’d been speaking to me for a while.
“—stay for as long as I can, my queen. But I need to go out later to pay Lionel a visit.”
“I want to come with you,” I said hoarsely, each word scraping up my sore throat.
I was numb, completely hollowed out, but something flickered to life when Damien tipped my face up and laid a soft kiss on my lips.
“I’d feel better if you stayed home, Vasya,” he replied with stark honesty. “The thought of you going out again so soon scares the shit out of me.”
I exhaled and a weight fell off my shoulder. “I don’t really want to leave. But—you’ll make sure Lionel’s okay, right? The doctors can save him, can’t they?”
“Of course they can,” he agreed with nothing but affection in his black eyes. “Doctors can work miracles these days. I’ve been shot and survived it—what, Vasya?”
“Where?”I demanded, blood roaring in my ears. My whole body had tensed. “Where? Show me.”
“It healed years ago,” he said softly, which was not at all showing me where he’d been shot.
“I saw your body, but I didn’t see a gunshot wound.”
“It’s just a scar now so—”
“Show me,”I growled, the numbness eroded by blistering rage. My breathing quickened, my blood heating, boiling.
“Breathe,” he reminded me, and began unbuttoning his shirt—a charcoal grey tonight that made his skin seem a richer, deeper gold. “Here, look it’s nothing now.”
I exhaled hard at the puckered curve of a scar on his shoulder, little longer than my finger and the same width. But the fact that it was there, that someone had dared shoot my husband…
“Who did this to you?” I asked casually.
“A man who thought he could take out my family at one of our bars. He got me in the shoulder and Vincent in the thigh. Obviously, we both survived.”
I brushed the pad of my thumb over the scar, everything very quiet inside my head, very still. “What happened to that man?”
Damien paused, peering at my face. “You gonna hunt him down and make him regret hurting me, my queen?”
“Yes,” I hissed fiercely, blood roaring in my ears. “You’re mine.”
But I remembered all at once that he wasn’t. Or at least wasn’t only mine.
I climbed off his lap, Damien reluctant to release me but not stopping me. I paused in front of the window and wrapped my arms around myself like I could contain the storm of jealousy and rage.
“Vasilisa?”
I said nothing. If I opened my mouth, everything would come tumbling out and I didn’t want to snap. I could lose him. How soon could he divorce me? The thought sliced through my belly like a scythe, spilling sickness into my pit of venom and jealousy.
“Talk to me, my queen,” he urged, getting out of his chair and coming to stand beside me. I hadn’t even seen his office before, had barely noticed the desk and chairs, my vision tunnelled to Damien.
Now my eyes travelled everywhere but near my husband, looking at the sleek glass and chrome furniture, the neutral grey and white walls hung with subtle art and familyphotos, bookshelves pushed against them stacked precisely with hundreds of books on economics and politics and history.
“I can’t help unless you speak to me,” he said quietly, worry a strong undercurrent in his tone. “You’re right, I am yours, and I hate the thought of you struggling with something when you have a husband frantic to help you.”
The laugh that escaped was dark and bitter. I didn’t mean to let it free.
I sensed Damien freeze, felt him reevaluate.
Well. I might as well ruin everything; I’d already started down the slippery slope. If I lost him, it couldn’t be worse than the distance between us the last few weeks. Sure, I wouldn’t wake up in his arms and he wouldn’t put me to sleep with several orgasms, but—I missed him. I wanted him back and he wasright here,and I hated the strangeness of that feeling.
He was holding back, and it all poured out in a low, vicious voice as I stared at the world outside his office window.
