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NATASHA
Dima’s perfect façade never once slips out of place as he guides me through the throngs of wedding guests gathered at The Surf Club on Indian Creek Island. He looks smooth, assured, and in complete control, but the way his fingertips dig into my spine paints a very different picture.
He hasn’t spoken a word to me since Luka left his house.
He hasn’t even looked at me.
And now he parades me around like I’m his trophy, all self-satisfied smiles and bullshit for his audience.
His hand is firm on my back, never moving off of me while we walk to a private veranda area set up for the immediate family.
Once we are a few feet away from the exclusive pre-party, he claps a hand on my shoulder and spins me around in his direction, a sharp glare firing from his icy blue eyes.
It seems that my fiancé is a little pissed off. Finally, he shows a glimpse of something other than ambivalence.
Wedded bliss, here I come.
“I don’t know what that whole thing with Luka was all about, but let me just tell you this now. If you so much as think about my brother again, I will make sure you pay the price.”
I slap his hand away, my lips twisting. “Okay, so first of all, you don’t get to own my thoughts, Dima. My mind is my own. And second? Don’t threaten me again. You’ve already plucked me out of my life like a fucking grape off a vine. You don’t get anything else, understand?”
I don’t really know what I expect by shooting off my mouth to him.
I mean, I challenged Luka because I knew the punishment would be an erotic cataclysm of epic proportions.
But Dima absolutely repulses me, and I want him to know, in no uncertain terms, that I will not be his prize.
At least, not willingly.
“If you embarrass me like that again, there will be hell to pay,” he hisses.
I bite back a smile because I don’t want to incite him any more than I already have. And I take the win because he’s obviously stewing about my exchange with Luka outside of his house.
“My brother wanted to kill you. The only reason why you’re alive right now is because I came up with this plan to spare your life, a life I will personally snuff out if you even think about violating the terms of our arrangement.”
He thinks I’m going to cheat.
Good. Let him.
He also thinks telling me something I already know is going to scare me.
It doesn’t.
“Arrangement, my ass. If memory serves, I was ordered at gunpoint to leave my house. I didn’t arrange a damn thing.” I clench my teeth, drawing myself up to my full height to show him I will never cower to him.
Part of me wants to tell him what a low-life bastard he is for hiring those guys to break into Luka’s house and for trying to kill his own brother. I heard every word of their twisted exchange while they were outside on the veranda earlier.
But I don’t say anything. I’m on my own now, and I can’t flaunt my entire hand. I can’t let him know what I know if I’m ever going to use it against him.
But then a nagging thought takes hold of my brain.
Luka told me he’s leaving Miami. So why does Dima have his dick in a twist over what happened between us? It’s not like Luka will be a threat at all. He must know that, right?
“I want you glued to my side for this wedding. You will smile. You will be charming.” His lips pull into a tight line. “Or someone will pay.”
That’s enough to make my blood run cold.
Is he talking about hurting Luka again? Because I am pretty certain he doesn’t have any intentions of stripping me out of this dress and bending me over his knee the way Luka did when he wanted to punish me. No, Dima looks at me like I’m a bug crawling around on the ground — one he’d like to squash with the tip of his fancy shoe.
