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CHAPTERELEVEN
“That was good,” I said, as I leaned back and popped a fry into my mouth.
Leo smiled at me. I decided that I liked his genuine smile. It softened the hardened planes of his face, and it made him not look so bad. It probably helped that he was dressed more casually than I had ever seen him. Not that I had seen him a great deal.
The last two times we had interacted, he just seemed like a normal Bratva dude. Suit. Cockiness. And this idea that he was so much better than anyone else.
“See,” he said. “I told you that the food would at least be good.”
I chuckled. “You did,” I said. I glanced at my watch. “Though I should probably go home. I still have to finish my paper.”
I expected for him to argue with me, but instead, he nodded. “I remember being in college. I spent a great deal of time in the library studying.” He ran a hand across his face. “Hell, I think I’ve spent a great deal of my life in a library somewhere.”
I chuckled. “I can’t imagine you in the library,” I admitted.
He looked at me with an odd expression on his face. “I went to Harvard. You don’t think that I needed to go to the library?”
I shrugged. I could not fully explain it, but it felt odd to think of Leo as a student. He was only about ten years older than I was, but he gave off the aura of a man who had seen a great deal. He probably had.
He was the eldest son of his family, which meant that he would have a more specific place in the Bratva than his brother. Maybe he was happy about that, but something told me that he was not.
“You always just seem so put together.”
He brought his beer to his lips and took a deep drink before he responded to me. “I’ve learned to put on a persona.”
“Why?” I asked. “You don’t need to. My family likes you better than they like me.”
I thought that he was going to start to chuckle, but instead, he frowned slightly. The lines in his face were deep, and I suspected that he frowned a great deal.
“Your father doesn’t like me,” he said. “He sees me as a necessary evil.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said.
I hadn’t expected the two of us to start diving deep into my father, but I wasn’t mad about it. Leo knew more about the Bratva than I did, which pissed me off, but I could put that aside to try and get more information on him.
“My father was never going to make me Pakhan. He was going to have to marry me off to someone,” I said. It hurt to speak the truth, but I knew that was what it was. I had lied to myself for years and done everything I could to prove to my father that I was as dangerous as any man. Which I was, but I’d acted out to prove it. I wanted him to take me seriously so I worked hard at school. I got into college. I did everything I was supposed to do, and it had not mattered one bit.
Leo looked at me with pity.
“Don’t,” I snapped. “I’m not interested in sympathy.”
He released a heavy breath. “Too bad,” he said. “I am sympathetic.”
I blinked away the tears that filled my eyes. “Why?” I asked. “You get to be Pakhan. Hell, even if we are being forced to get married, we both know that that doesn’t mean shit. You could cheat on me one hundred times over, and the Bratva would probably speak irreverently about your prowess.” I snorted at the irony.
Leo might sympathize with me, but he was no different than the rest of the family. After all, he’d stalked me and ratted me out to my father all because he did not want someone touching a woman that he felt he had a claim to.
It was sick.
“You think that I would cheat on you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really care if you do,” I admitted, and it was the truth. I didn’t necessarily believe in monogamy. “The issue I have is that you can have affairs while demanding that I remain faithful.” I leaned forward. I had not planned for this to get combative, but Leo needed to be aware of what he was going to be getting himself into if he married me.
“Neither of us are going to be sleeping with other people,” he growled out. The sound of his voice caused my stomach to clench. I couldn’t stop the feelings that rolled through me when Leo was around.
There was an energy about him that was undeniable.
“Oh? That’s news to me, but I suppose that I should not be surprised considering that you were stalking me before I even knew that you existed.”
