Wife.
She stared at the word for a second, but said nothing. Instead, she opened the voice recorder and held the phone toward me. “I’m recording this so you can’t take it back. Say it. Say I can use your card to buy a new phone, and you won’t add it to the debt because this was your fault.”
I looked at the phone, then at her. She couldn’t be serious.
“I make money,” I said. “One of us should spend it.”
She groaned in frustration. “That is not what I asked. Don’t try to sound clever on a recording. I’m not stupid.”
“Inna.” That stopped her. She looked at me immediately. “Use the card however you want. I don’t care.”
For a second, she just stared at me, lips parted slightly, as if shehadn’t expected that answer. After a few seconds, she nodded, saved the recording, and sent it to herself.
“I have evidence now.” She sat back and glanced toward where Anton stood. “I’ll ask Anton to stop at the store.”
“And then go home,” I said, and she nodded.
Without another word, I stepped out and shut the door behind me. I walked around the car and stopped beside her driver.
“If anything happens to her,” I said, “make sure you die before I get to you.”
I walked to the bike without waiting for his response. Instead of heading to the club as I’d planned, I rode back to the office.
One thing was evident now. I was in the same mess Rodion buried himself in. The kind a man like me wasn’t supposed to fall into.
Chapter Thirty-five
Inna Grace
I lay in bed scrollingthrough the new phone I got. The phone was supposed to distract me from overthinking what happened this morning, but it was doing a terrible job. Every few scrolls, another kissing video appeared, dragging me right back into it. My entire feed suddenly looked romantic. At some point, I lowered the phone to stare at the ceiling, wondering why my Instagram algorithm was acting like it was ovulating.
A message popped up, and I opened it immediately. I texted Caitlin earlier to ask if we could meet tomorrow, and she confirmed. I needed to talk to someone before the pressure inside my head developed into an actual medical condition. Because explain to me why, after Dmitri handed me his black card, I went back into the pharmacy and bought birth control pills. Some reckless part of me was already preparing for another moment with him. What happened this morning was what quietly rearranged your self-control. And somehow, my brain seemed to rearrange itself, too.
Why did I leave after the sex? I groaned and pressed myface into my hands, heat crawling up my neck all over again. Who even does that? Normal people stay to talk. That was how emotionally stable adults did, but no, I went straight to the bathroom and locked myself inside. I stayed there hoping Dmitri wouldn’t knock on the door, and he didn’t.
He didn’t follow me at all, which I told myself was exactly what I wanted. But the next three hours proved otherwise. The silence after he left stretched into something unbearable, and I filled it with every interpretation until my own thoughts turned against me. The one thing that stayed with me all day, especially after realizing he had left the mansion, was that whatever had happened between us meant nothing to him. It was a mistake. At some point during the day, I actually cried over it before deciding I needed emergency pills.
When I saw him in that pharmacy looking worked up, checking me over like me being hurt was his worst nightmare, my chest loosened. Then he kissed me, but it was the forehead kiss afterward that made every thought in my head go quiet at once.
I turned over in bed and pushed the blanket off me, suddenly too warm beneath it, and it was entirely his fault.
It was ten o’clock in the evening, and Dmitri still wasn’t home. I continued to scroll through Instagram with little attention, lazily moving from one reel to another until I landed on a fashion video. The dress was deep green, elegant in that effortless way Caitlin liked, and the moment I saw it, it reminded me of her. I copied the link, sent it to her, and added a quick text beneath it.
Me
Check this dress. It would look good on you.
Caitlin hadn’t replied when I heard the front door open. I turned my phone screen off immediately and placed it on the bedside table before pulling the blanket up to my chin. I closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
A few seconds later, the bedroom door opened. I stayed still, focusing on keeping my breathing even and natural, though it became harder the moment I sensed movement near the bed. Dmitri’s cologne reached me first. I instantly knew it was him. His hand settled against my hair, the touch so unexpected and gentle that I almost flinched beneath it. He stayed there for a moment before moving away. Another door opened shortly after, and then the sound of the shower came.
I exhaled slowly. Why was I pretending anyway?
The shower ran on the other side of the wall while I lay there fanning my face, my body heating all over again against my will. The memory of our unplanned sex dropped into my head without warning, vivid enough to make my stomach tighten. I remembered his voice against my ear, rough in a way that still did unreasonable things to my nervous system. He fucked me like he was trying to prove a point, and maybe he was.
Shit. He ruined me.
Now I had to share a bed with this man, and I wasn’t sure I possessed the emotional resources necessary to survive that experience with my dignity intact.
