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Zak
The instant Sofia’shand touched Oleksandr’s, I wanted to snatch it back. Especially after the conversation we’d just had.
He’d explained the reason they were so late was because Yulia was having a meltdown. The tantrums of all tantrums—or so Oleks had said. The old man didn’t have much patience for female emotions, so that could have meant anything from a simple passing comment to a full-on stomping, screaming fit full of hysterics and dramatics that could bring a city crumbling around us all.
Given the coolness Yulia and her husband were currently directing at my soon-to-be in-laws, I had to guess that it was more the latter than the former. My ex-sister-in-law didn’t get emotional often, a safety mechanism she’d built up inside herself to survive first her father and then my brother during their marriage. But when she did let her feelings get the better of her, she became unpredictable.
And it was all because of Oleksandr. His glee over my wedding. The way he’d been so damn condescending since his arrival the day before, because everything he’d ever wanted was within his grasp. I wanted to punch that smug look off his face, but that would surely be hypocritical of me since I was the one responsible for putting it there.
By doing everything he’d ever asked of me out of a sense of obligation to him, I’d allowed him to think he could rule my life even after my marriage to Sofia was finalized. I could see it in his eyes, the way he wanted to use her—and me. Then once Oleksandr found out about Sofia’s pregnancy, it would only get worse. His ambitions would escalate until he was literally the president of our country.
Anger directed solely at myself burned in my gut, and I wanted to scoop Sofia into my arms and get her as far away from her biological family as possible. One word from any of them, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would lose her. Not that I had anyone besides myself to blame.
I should have explained everything the moment I met her. But even then, I hadn’t considered the consequences of what would happen should she learn the truth. Now, it was my greatest fear. A fear that was like a noose around my neck, tightening with every smug grin directed at my bride. I couldn’t fucking breathe each time Yulia and Volodymyr glanced at Sofia with longing, and then me with disgust.
Dinner passed in a blur. Fear I was unused to feeling made my palms sweat. I barely ate the food that was set before me. What I was able to put into my mouth was tasteless. My lack of appetite didn’t go unnoticed by Sofia, and she moved closer, resting her hand on my thigh and rubbing up and down in a manner I knew she meant to be soothing, but even with anxiety and fear churning in my gut, my body couldn’t stop its reaction to her soft touch.
Capturing her hand, I brought it to my lips and kissed her palm. Need flashed through her blue eyes, and I wanted to pull her under the table and make her come on my tongue. But my Sofia was anything but quiet when I was giving her pleasure. Everyone in the building would know what she sounded like when she fell apart for me, and then I’d have to kill them all.
“Have mercy on me,dorogaya,” I pleaded against her soft skin.
She gave me a mischievous smile, but it didn’t completely hide the concern in her gaze. “You seem upset. Is everything okay?” Her bottom lip began to tremble, and she lowered her voice so only I could hear her. “Zak, you aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”
I tightened my fingers around hers. “Never,” I assured her vehemently. “Nothing will stop me from making you my wife tomorrow, Sofia. Nothing.”
Relief filled her beautiful face, and she leaned closer until her lips brushed over my ear. “Once my parents go to bed later, I’ll sneak out and come home. There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep without you. As long as I’m back before Mom starts the day, she won’t even notice.”
“I’ll send a car for you,” I murmured, some of my tension melting, knowing I wouldn’t have to spend the night away from her. It had been driving me crazy thinking about sleeping in our bed alone.
“No,” she told me firmly, still so close her breath caressed my ear and neck. “If anyone sees one of your cars or men, they will rat me out, and then my mom will go ballistic. Don’t worry about me getting home. I’ve done this plenty of times to know how to get where I need to go safely.”
“Sofia!” I bit out, disliking the thought of her taking risks in the past as well as later that night.
“Zakhar!” she mocked, her eyes glittering with amusement as she settled back into her chair. “Trust me.”
I wanted to argue with her about it, but those around us seemed entertained by our whispered conversation. Sofia hurriedly distracted them before anyone could ask what we were talking about. The rehearsal dinner was over not long after that, and her mother was in such a rush to get her away from me before the clock struck midnight that I barely got the chance to kiss Sofia before she was being shoved into the back of her parents’ car and driven away.
Muttering curses under my breath, I put Oleksandr and the others in two town cars and sent them back to their hotel before any of them could draw me into a conversation that would only piss me off. With Sofia’s promise to come home later that evening, I didn’t want to be angry and cause her more reason to worry about what was going on between my family and me.
Back at the townhouse, I showered and prepared for bed in anticipation of Sofia’s return. As I washed the day away, I knew that my plans had to change. Oleksandr wanted us to spend the time leading up to the holidays at his house, but I no longer trusted him. Whatever plans he had for my marriage to his granddaughter were more extreme than I’d been led to believe, and while I was still in the dark about what they might be, I wasn’t going to risk it.
Then there was Yulia. She was the one I was the most worried about. The longing in her eyes when she looked at Sofia bothered me, but it was the jealousy I’d witnessed on her face as she’d shot glares at the Volkovs that had put me most on edge.
Pulling on a pair of sleep pants, I was using the towel to finish drying my hair when the doorbell sounded. Figuring Sofia had forgotten her key, I practically sprinted downstairs to the front door and pulled it open.
But it wasn’t my bride-to-be on the front step.
Standing there, practically seething with a rage I’d rarely seen her express in all the years I’d known her, Yulia looked ready to slit my throat.
“You’re just like him,” she snarled with hate glowing out of her eyes, not even bothering to step inside the house. “You may not share any DNA with him, but you and my father are one and the same. Taking away her choices. Marrying her off to get the political power that shouldn’t even matter in this day and age. The only difference between what he did to me and what you are both doing to her is that she gets to keep her baby, while I had to give mine away.”
“How do you know she is pregnant?” We hadn’t told anyone yet. Not her parents or brother and sister-in-law. Not even my security detail knew.
“An educated guess,” she said with a shrug. “Like me when I was pregnant with her, she was sensitive to many of the food smells during dinner. She couldn’t eat enough sour things, but she turned green the moment anything remotely spicy was placed in front of her.”
“Okay, yes, she’s pregnant,” I admitted in frustration, raking my hands through my damp hair. “But the rest, you’re only seeing what you want to see, Yulia. This has nothing to do with the political power Oleksandr is after. At least not for me.”
“Bullshit!” she shouted in Russian. “You love the power you will get by making her your wife. Just like him. I never should have brought you home with me when I divorced Leonid. I should have left you to fend for yourself with that bastard.” Tears dripped from her lashes. “Maybe then, my daughter wouldn’t have been pulled into the same nightmare I was twenty years ago.”
