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Prologue
Some people call me an ice queen.
It’s not ice. On the inside I’m burning up. I’ve got so many things I want, and I can’t have any of them.
And the one thing I don’t want, wants me more than anything.
My name is Anya Talova, and people think I have it together.
A handsome man is falling over himself to impress me. He’s got millions, a perfect body, the perfect smile. He wants nothing more than for me to fall all over myself accepting his proposals.
But I don’t want him. I want the imperfect, scared woman who won’t admit she loves me.
It’d be easier to be an ice queen. Then I could just order them both executed and be done with it.
Chapter One
I walked into my kitchen in the hopes that I could have my first late, calming morning in quite a long time. See, I never take a day off. And I’m never late.
Today, I slept in. It’s a special day. The whole company got to take off, actually, like it’s a holiday.
My co-worker and her husband just had a baby. They pretty much run the massively successful silicon valley startup I work for. At least, they get most of the money.
I pretty much run it. In all the ways that matter.
But today they gave us all the day off to celebrate the birth of their new child. And instead of using the day like I usually did, catching up on emails and phone calls while the rest of the company snoozed, I decided to treat myself to a day of relaxing.
It would be anything but relaxing.
There was a man in my kitchen. Not just any man, but the worst man in the world.
Joseph Michaels was a son-of-a-bitch if I’ve ever seen one. He was a few inches shorter than me, but I could hardly blame him, as I was model-high and often wore massive heels as a show of dominance.
No, I didn’t blame him for that. I blamed him for his perfectly muscled body that he spent so much time on. And for his gorgeously soft, waving hair that he groomed to perfection.
I blamed him for his well-hung member, which I had previously enjoyed frequently, and which his horrible personality had rendered repulsive, though it was very nice on its own.
I blamed this man for being so horrible and so attractive that every woman would want him and blame herself for it.
But that was a long time ago. I’d made it clear to him I would never want to see him again, no matter how beautifully his cheekbones were sculpted and how good it felt to have his harsh, full beard scrape against my skin.
Seeing him now was strange. He was in my kitchen, gripping a glass of milk in shaky hands.
It was worlds away from the cocky man I usually knew and had previously cavorted with. This man was trembling, his clothes dirty and unwashed, his hair and beard untrimmed.
What had happened?
“What’s wrong?” I asked, though I wanted to throw him out of the kitchen. I worried there was something horribly wrong with his brother, who was perhaps my only friend, and his wife and new baby.
“Not even going to say hello, Anya?” he asked bitterly, “Not after two years? Something has to be wrong for me to want to see you?”
“Yes,” I told him, “Something better be dead wrong, because I told you if I ever saw your face again, you’d be dead.”
“I am dead,” he whispered, “At least, I feel dead already. You didn’t know it, and I didn’t know it, but when you threw me away all that time ago, it killed me.”
I reached for my home phone. It had an emergency button that contact the private security firm that I paid copious money so I could avoid bullshit like this.
He threw himself to his knees. From the floor, he grabbed my legs.
“Please Anya,” he said, “Marry me. Be my queen. I’ll be your happy little slave, just love me. I’m so broken. You’re the only thing that ever made me feel close to whole.”
I eyed him. His beautifully eyes were welling with sincere tears.
I knew how he felt. I’d been thrown away by someone else a few days before. But I’d never go begging for her to love me.
