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“Hell, if I were Celine, I’d stab you in the heart,” Mila teases, flashing me a wolfish grin.
I grit my teeth. “My first priority is getting Celine back. The rest, I will deal with after.”
“Or, hear me out now,” Dima suggests. “You could marry Taylor instead of Celine.”
“Fucking hell,” I grumble, getting to my feet. I’ve always been an angry pacer, and right now, I’m on the cusp of being furious. It has nothing to do with Dima or Mila, though. This is about all the control I’ve managed to lose in a matter of days. “Not a goddamn chance.”
“Why not?” Dima insists. “You need a wife. The fact that they’re sisters is actually pretty convenient. You have your leverage,andyou have your heir. It’s perfect.”
Mila sighs and shakes her head. “Except for the fact that Taylor would never agree to it.”
“Does she need to?” Dima asks innocently.
“Even if she was open to it, I’m not,” I insist. Something tugs inside my chest when I say it, but I very quickly and pointedly ignore it.
“What are you trying to prove, big brother?” Mila asks shrewdly.
I glare at her until she lowers her gaze. “Celine is teachable. Taylor is not. I need a wife who can do the job, and Taylor is too opinionated and combative. Celine, on the other hand… She’ll be easy to mold.”
Mila twists with disgust. But I don’t give a damn about her propriety.
I need to marry Celine because she’s a means to an end. Taylor, on the other hand? She could be the start of something I never asked for in the first place.
Disaster.
32
TAYLOR
“Are you okay?”
I turn my back on the tall man who spoke. I’ve seen him by Ilarion’s side fairly often. I return to my hyperventilating, hoping he’ll get the hint and leave.
Instead, I see his shadow grow bigger as he moves closer to me.
It took some time to find this little corner of the church. It’s partly hidden by tall columns and tucked away behind the looming arrangement of sunflowers I ordered from Chapman’s on Ilarion’s credit card. It smelled like Mom back here, just a fleeting whiff of it, and it felt like the perfect place to panic and cry and melt down out of sight.
I don’t appreciate him invading my oasis.
Not that I have the energy—or the oxygen—to tell him to fuck off.
“Breathe from your diaphragm,” he instructs me. I hate how gentle and reassuring his voice sounds. “Try to slow your thoughts.”
I glare at him from my hunched position. “If…if I could…do that…I would…be able to…tobreathe.”
He smiles placidly. He’s handsome. Not in the dark, broody, confronting way that Ilarion is, but more of a boyish charm. Non-threatening. Approachable. I have a feeling the faded crew cut was a way of giving those pretty features some grit, but I’m not sure it has the desired effect.
“Here,” he says, offering me something in his hand. “Have one.”
“I don’t do drugs,” I inform him, disregarding the little bag in his palm.
“Your loss,” he says. “But incidentally, they’re not drugs. Not the harmful kind, anyway.”
I straighten slowly and take another glance at his palm. On closer inspection, they appear to be… “Are those toffees?”
He nods. “Iriski. They make them special at this little coffee shop in Kazan. It’s toffee with a chocolate center. You have to work to get to the chocolate, but lemme tell you, it’s so worth it.”
I eye him suspiciously. “It’s not spiked or anything, is it?”
