She gives me a wary look. “Really?”
“Yes. We just might disagree what mission critical means.”
She huffs in frustration. “Groping me under the table at dinner, where no one can see, can’t possibly be mission critical. I said I want us to befriends, and I meant— Shit, he just got up.”
My eyes snap to Maksim and Ekaterina’s table. Maksim is out of his seat, heading toward the room where the Pushkin book is on display.
A prickle of unease coasts over my nape.
Blake swipes her handbag from where it’s hanging on her chair. “This is it. It’s just a conversation, right?”
We lock eyes. I force a smile. “Just a conversation. I’ll be there before you know it. You got this.”
She nods, squeezes my hand, and stands up.
As I watch her walk all the way through the room, I have to hold myself back from getting up, going after her, throwing her over my shoulder, and taking her out to the car.
She disappears into the hallway, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. Seconds tick by, each one heavier than the last. I try to focus on the room around me, on the clinking of glasses and the murmur of conversation, but all I can think about is Blake.
I really fucking hope I’m not making a mistake getting her involved in this.
CHAPTER 17
BLAKE
It’s official. Nero is driving me insane. He knows exactly how to get under my skin with his words and his touch.
If it wasn’t for this thing with Maksim giving me a way out, I’m not sure what I would allow my husband to do to me. Because with every passing minute in his presence, a little voice in my head wonders if it really would be so bad to give in.
I promised myself I wouldn’t. My mind knows that Ishouldn’t.
But my body doesn’t seem to care about any of that.
How I wish that I still hated Nero with the same intensity as when he drove me to New York!
But I don’t.
And Nero can sense it, can’t he?
What if you give in just once?
No, it’s never just once. That’s how it starts, and then it happens “just once” again and again.
It’s not like Nero is some stranger from a bar, and after we sleep together, he’ll just go on his merry way, and I’ll never see him again.
We live together. He’s my fricking husband. A husband who wants to repair our relationship. A husband who’s shown me he’s willing to die for me.
A heavy weight lodges inside my belly. I keep comparing Nero to my father, comparing my story to my mother’s, but my dad would never have laid down his life for my mom. For his kids. For his family.
Nero is…different.
I clutch my purse close to my chest as I walk out of the ballroom.
He might be different in some ways, but he’s still a criminal. I can’t forget that. And I can’t risk doing anything that will shake the walls I have erected around my heart. The walls that already feel like they’re crumbling, which only makes it more urgent that I get the hell out of this place before I lose myself even more.
I roll my shoulders back, force myself to breathe, and amble around the showroom for a few minutes, stopping by the glass displays to look at the items enclosed. The starting bids aren’t shown, but they’re listed in the app I scrolled through on the drive over, and they’re not for the faint of heart. Our tickets alone were ten grand apiece.
With the dinner still in progress, there are only a few people here. I wait until the couple standing close to Maksim drift away.
