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Caterina doesn’t want to admit she fucking enjoyed it. She doesn’t want to go to bed with me again because her body would betray her, and she’d have to come to terms with the fact that she likes it. She might despise me, pretend to be disgusted by me, but deep down, she wants my cock, Bratva or not.
“My husband wants a child,” Caterina says stiffly, as the doctor turns his gaze back to her, opening his mouth as if to begin trying to convince her once more that this isn’t the path she should go down. “This is the way I’ve chosen to accomplish that.”
“I’m paying you enough for this visit alone,” I growl, still seeing the uncertainty in the doctor’s face. “We’ll do what my wife wants.”
He lets out a long sigh, flattening his hands on the desk and looking down at our files again. “Fine,” he agrees, finally. “This is all very—unusual, but you’re right. You are the one paying me, Mr. Andreyev. So we’ll do it the way you and your wife want.”
“Correct,” I growl, glaring at him. “And if you start having second thoughts, I suggest you ask around about the name Viktor Andreyev. I’m not a man whose time you want to waste.”
The doctor’s face pales slightly in a way that makes me feel that pleasant rush of power again.
We’re given the rest of the information then, injection and appointment schedules, information about egg retrieval and embryo survival rates, and all kinds of other technical details that make my head swim. I can feel a rising frustration as the doctor goes on. This could all be avoided if Caterina would stop being so fucking stubborn, stop trying to prove a point, that she can have some power in this marriage. Caterina is listening to him intently, which of course she fucking is. If this works, she won’t ever have to let me fuck her again, which is just confirmed when the doctor mentionsmultiple embryosandfuture pregnancieswith the ones preserved from these rounds of IVF. I grit my teeth just listening to it, but I can see the smallest of smiles forming on Caterina’s face as she takes in every word.
That, of course, only adds to the iciness between us on the ride home. “You’ll have to help me with the injections,” Caterina says, glancing at me blankly. “Unless, of course, you’d prefer I get one of the maids to help me.”
“I’ll do it,” I bite out, my jaw working as I fight back everything I want to say to her right now. “We’re keeping up appearances, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Caterina turns away, looking out of the window again.
It’s hard to hold back the anger and frustration I feel boiling just beneath the surface. I want Caterina, now more than ever, and I’m self-aware enough to know that her stubborn refusal likely contributes to that a great deal. I’m not used to not getting the things that I want.
It’s almost enough to make me regret marrying her. In the years since Vera died, I’ve managed to cultivate an internal peace that largely came from avoiding romantic entanglements with anyone. The passion, the anger, the arguments and makeup sex, the intense highs and even worse lows of my first marriage were all things I’d decided to put behind me. I’d thought that marrying a woman like Caterina would help me to maintain that peace. She’d been born into this life. She knows the rules, the expectations. She would be obedient, pliable, appropriate. I’d believed all of those things when I’d demanded Luca give her to me, and yes, a small part of me had desired her, too. But I’d desired the way taking her would make me feel more, the rush of demanding a woman and having her handed over to me.
But she’s turned out to be none of those things. And it almost makes me wish I’d made a different choice—except that I still want her. And she’s fulfilling the most basic tenets of what I demanded of her—in her own way.
She’s going to carry my child, and she’s good with my daughters. Ultimately, that’s all I need from her, even if it’s not all I want. And as I think about Vera and my first marriage and look at Caterina’s pale face and set jaw as she looks out of the window, I know that I need to tread carefully. Caterina might be frustrating the hell out of me, but I don’t want her to meet the same end. I don’t want our marriage to drive her to that point—I’m not sure I could bear feeling that responsibility again. And the last thing in the world I want is for my children to lose another mother figure. I’ve already seen Yelena warming to her, even if Anika remains stubborn.
I could try to seduce her.I watch her from the corner of my eye as we drive, and I consider that idea. I consider romancing her, bringing her things she might like, treating her gently, with affection, and even love, however fake it might be. I consider teasing her, seducing her, making her want me until she can’t bear to stay out of my bed a moment longer.
But we’d agreed not to lie to one another. And I’m not the kind of man who fakes things in order to get what he wants.
I simply take them.
Which means Caterina has a few months to have things her way.
And then we’ll do it mine.
