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She lifted one eyebrow up, as a challenge. I struggled to contain my smile. It would only piss her off even more.
With an air of finality, I closed the door behind me. Still she didn’t say a word or start a fight to get me to leave the room. Perhaps she finally understood that I was never going to leave her.
“I suppose you won’t consider sleeping somewhere else?” she eventually asked.
“Never.”
She pursed her lips. Then she dropped the towel. I could see every inch of her glorious body. I went hard all over.
Our gazes locked. That damn smirk on her beautiful lips told me she knew exactly what she was doing.
She sat on the chair at her vanity. Her eyes watched mine in the mirror. “Well, then I guess you leave me no choice.”
She opened a bottle on the dresser and started to apply a cream to her legs. Then to her arms, over her breasts and pert nipples.
It took me a whole minute before I realized that I was leaning against the wall, staring at her like some deranged lunatic.
“I guess I don’t,” I said, a faint smile on my lips.
Her brows furrowed, but then she regained herself. My beautiful wife was playing a game with high stakes. What was more, she was playing it with a demon forged in hell and had no idea. I was the one who discovered and exploited my adversaries’ weaknesses. I excelled at it. It was how I had built my empire, how I’d gotten the votes to become pakhan, and how I would make my murderous father pay.
Later, I told myself, as I went into the shower. Later, after I’d taken my revenge, there would be time to explain my reasons to Katya. She would learn that she’d come to mean more to me than I ever expected was possible. I might never be capable of the kind of love she deserved, but I was the only man she would ever have. No other would touch her. But I couldn’t let go of my past. I never had, didn’t even want to. It was a dark cloud that always hung over me. A cloud that pelted me with water like the drops from the shower did.
I turned the shower to cold until icy water sluiced over my body. I was used to the cold, having spent years in Siberia while training. Katya was sunshine, she was warmth. Not only was I not used to her light, I didn’t deserve it. Yet I was keeping her anyway.
I turned the water off and got out of the shower. I dried myself off and went into the bedroom. Katya was brushing her hair now, still naked.
She stiffened when I walked past her, equally naked. I felt her eyes burn into my back. I pushed away the comforter and dropped into bed, lying on my back with one arm behind my head.
Come little fly…
“It’s not going to get any shinier, no matter how much you brush it.”
She put the brush down with athunk. Then she grabbed her negligee from the dresser.
“Pity. I liked you better naked.”
A storm formed in her eyes, yet she didn’t speak as she got into bed next to me and gave me her back.
“The silent treatment?” I goaded her.
When her spine stiffened, I knew I had her. Katya was too brave and bold to avoid a confrontation. I wouldn’t want her any other way.
3.
KATYA
I turned around in the bed and glared at him. “You want me to speak? Fine. I can understand you want to avenge your mother, I would too. But I can’t get over the fact that you were going to hand me over to Sokolov. Four years I’ve lived with you. Four long years. I thought I belonged here.” That hurt the most. I’d really believed this was my home.
“I wouldn’t have handed you over to Sokolov.”
Despite everything, hoped bloomed in my chest. “Really?”
He looked away from me. “I gave your mother a blood vow that I would protect you with my life.”
My mouth almost dropped open. “When…Why?”
This was the last thing I expected. It sounded like my mother had known she wouldn’t make it back. But that didn’t make any sense. She’d gone to the cops, some special unit, to press charges against her stalker ex. She couldn’t have known that she would end up in a car accident. My stomach still churned when I thought about what Ted, her stalker, had cost me.
