As I explained this all to Viktor, though, all he did was give me a wide-eyed smirk.
“What?”
“Has it, I don’t know…” He rubbed the back of his head. “Has it maybe occurred to you that you’re overthinking the fuck out of this?”
I glared at him. He seemed the most approachable with this topic. He was blunt in a dry, sarcastic way, often crude but never shying away from telling it like it was. I needed that barebone honesty as I struggled with how to compartmentalize why I was, according to him, acting like I had something up my ass. I wasn’tcranky. I was annoyed. There was a difference. But the sum of it all was one person.
Elena.
“I’m not overthinking anything,” I defended.
“You sound like you’re goddamn obsessed with her and you can’t get her off your mind.” He shrugged before getting off the couch in the lounge.
“Are you accusing me of not being focused on the job of becoming the Pakhan?”
He rolled his eyes. “No one is going to accuse you of that, Brother. You were raised to do that. And if anyone does accuse you of not rising to the occasion, they’ll need to answer to me and Nik and Maksim. Lev and Alexei too.”
I rubbed my jaw, feeling the strain of grinding my teeth from all this stress.
This was precisely why I vowed not to get involved with a woman. The last thing I needed was another fucking distraction on my hands. Instead of giving my all to claiming the throne and preparing for my father’s death, Iwasobsessing over Elena.
“My advice would be to stop focusing on it.” He ambled toward the door, hands in his pockets. “Let things fall where they may. You know? See where it goes with her. Knowing you, you’ll probably bore of her and tire soon enough. She’s here to be an accountant?—”
“No.” I stood, too, peeved. “She’s here as a token of a payment from Morovov. The only reason I said I’d take her was to punish him.”
He spun to face me, a comically skeptical expression on his face. “Yeah. It’s been such a punishment to have her here and pointing out all the issues with the bookkeeping that could happen.”
“I didn’t realize she’d be such a…”
“Temptation?” he guessed.
“Asset,” I said instead. But he was right. Elena was a temptation I needed to be wary of.
After Viktor left, I revisited what Nikolai had said when he’d gotten his first impression of the gorgeous blonde who was a genius on the computer. To seduce her and get to the bottom of any secrets she might’ve had.
I frowned, convinced he was after the correct concept. Seduction was at play. But it wasn’t me seducing her. It had become a case of that force happening the other way around. Without seeming to realize it or acknowledge it, without acting like she was aware of what she was consciously doing, she had slowly been seducingme.
Getting under my skin.
Causing me to dream about fucking her hard.
Making me wonder how her pussy would hug my dick.
How—
“Goddammit,” I growled, leaving the room and heading for my suite. Another cold shower was due. It was the only feeble method I had to scrub her out of my mind for a little while.
She’d gotten under my skin, slowly but surely, with every little sigh, lick of her lip in concentration, and even her glasses sliding down her nose.
She’d bewitched me through how hard she worked, no matter what, and how sweet she was to always want to make life smoother and more manageable.
Distance had seemed like the answer tonight. I was cold and rude toward her to instill a line of separation between us so she’d get it out of her head that I was befriending her. We had to go back to the original boundaries.
She was sold to me by her father as a payment for his mismanagement of our finances.
I had to maintain a more logical mindset with her.
No more caving to kisses.
