Page 222 of Marrying the Savage

“I didn’t ruin that,” I say.

“No,” Grigori answers. “You ruined what came after.”

His hand tightens around the gun.

“Maksim became dear to him,” he says, and this time his voice changes. “Not immediately, not in the pretty way people talk about babies, but slowly. Damir held him because Irina was exhausted. Then he started asking whether Maksim had eaten. Then he gave orders about his tutors, his security, his doctors. He pretended it was responsibility, like he pretends everything is responsibility, but I saw it. My son became the closest thing Damir had to an heir.”

My heart beats hard enough that I can feel it in my throat.

“Grigori,” I say carefully.

“No.” His eyes flash. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“I am trying to understand.”

“You are trying to stay alive.”

“Yes,” I say, because lying would be stupid now. “I am.”

For some reason, that makes him smile again.

“Good. Honesty at last.”

He moves closer, and I take another step back. The corridor to the terrace is nearer now. I know that’s not better. The terrace is worse. The terrace is a dead end unless I can reach the side stairs, and I’m not even sure where they lead.

But the study door is too close behind me, and the main stairs are blocked.

I need him to keep talking.

“You made Maksim sick,” I say. His expression hardens. “You poisoned your own son.”

“I made him ill enough to empty the house,” he says. “Not enough to kill him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know exactly what he was given.”

“You held him down?”

He’s picturing it right now as I speak. His mouth tightens. “I did what I had to do.”

“To a child.”

“To my child,” he snaps, and for the first time his control breaks enough that the gun lifts slightly. “Mine. Not Damir’s. Mine.”

I freeze.

He breathes once, then steadies himself. “I gave Damir a son in every way that mattered,” he says. “Maksim would have carried the family forward. Damir would have protected him, trained him, made him his legacy. Then you arrived, and suddenly Damir gets a wife, a child of his own, and a future that cuts my son out of the place he was meant to have. I knew I had to get rid of you sooner or later. However, the timeline kind of accelerated.” He points at my stomach and I instinctively cover it.

The words are so ugly, so selfish, that I stop being afraid for half a second and become angry instead. “You were jealous of an unborn baby?”

He laughs, the sound sending chills down my spine. “I didn’t know Damir was even capable of that. So imagine my shock when I overheard you telling him the other day. Now tell me, pretty, is that even his? How did you even stomach to fuck a person who’s old enough to be your father?”

I look away, my mouth filling with disgust. “You can never be the man that Damir is,” I say.

His eyes turn flat.

I shouldn’t have said that. I know it at once.