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“I had no domestic help in university, graduate school or my two years of active duty in the military.”
“None?” she asked doubtfully.
“None. I could have had a cleaning service, at least at university and grad school, but I wanted to experience life as most of my country’s citizens do while I still had the chance of doing so.”
“You went without security too?” This time she was more horrified than questioning.
“As much as possible, yes. You don’t imagine I had security in my military unit. Wewerethe security.”
“I didn’t realize. Did your brothers do the same thing?”
“Not as such.”
Which means what?she wondered.
“You really want to go to Abu Dhabi together, just so we can have some more uncomplicated sex?”
“The sex so far has not been without its complications.”
She could not disagree. “But the understanding still stands? We are having sex, not starting a relationship.”
“We already have a relationship. We are friends, and you are part of my family.”
She couldn’t help the grimace that twisted her mouth.
“Don’t,” he ordered.
“Don’t what?”
“Think your life would be better without Nataliya and the rest of us Merikovs in it.”
“You don’t know that’s what I was thinking.”
“Don’t I?”
“No, Mr. Smarty-pants. I could never think my life would bebetterwithout my BFF.” Just easier. More straightforward.
“And yet you are considering breaking off your friendship.”
“Not because I think my life would be better.”
“If not better, then what?”
“More honest.”
“In what way is your life dishonest?”
“Not telling the people that Skylar hurt by selling information about them, that it had happened.”
“You would be fired if you did so.”
“You sound very sure of that.” She wasn’t denying it, but Jenna wasn’t positive that would be the outcome either.
She hadn’t been allowed to put it to the test. In the end, it hadn’t been the magazine that put a gag on her.
“That kind of admission would make the magazine vulnerable to expensive liability,” Dima pointed out, clearly in a different headspace about it. “Not to mention seriously undermining its reputation in the fashion industry.”
“Even so, it’s my relationship with you all that has taken my choices away.”
