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“Yes,” I answer cautiously, not sure who she is or why she’s here. “I am.”
“Good,” she replies with a smile that reveals a row of perfect teeth. “I’m sure you’re having fun with Andrei.”
I’m about to ask her why she’s sitting at my table when a waiter enters to serve sparkling water and a basket of fresh-baked rolls.
Feeling awkward, I try to make chitchat to fill the silent void.
“Do you know the Barinovs?” I ask. “Are you another sister of Andrei’s?”
The woman’s tweezed eyebrow slants and then falls back into place. She calls me a fool without speaking the word.
Then it hits me. I’ve seen her before.
Those dark eyes that can slice a person to pieces with a single gaze. She’s the woman that scowled at me in the store! She’s the one that made my feet stick to the carpet.
Suddenly, her eyes no longer demand attention. They’re demandingblood.
My arms tense by my sides as Andrei’s words of warning loop through my brain.There are worse people. My eyes dart from hers to the door, hoping Andrei—or anyone for that matter—will appear and rescue me from her. But no one is coming, and I figure the best thing to do is to leave before things get ugly.
Slowly, I start to stand, as if she is a coiled snake waiting to strike.
“Sit.” Her commanding voice freezes me in place. “I want to talk to you, Paige.”
How does she know my name?I obey her command and sit down, holding onto the table to keep myself from trembling. My gut tells me that if I betray even a hint of fear, she won’t hesitate to do something bad—something unthinkable.
Why me?But I don’t ask that, not now.
“Who are you?” I ask sheepishly.
A bitter laugh peals from her throat. And her baleful gaze lands on the wedding ring on my finger. Before I can react and take my hand off the table, she strikes like lightning to grab my wrist.
She admires the cut of the diamond, and I can feel her nails digging into the flesh of my wrist. My eyes follow her gaze to the ring. It’s slightly too big for my hand. And suddenly, I’m reminded that I’m owned, not loved.
“My name is Talia Nikitin.” Her lips twist to the side. “I am Andre Barinov’s fiancée. His real one.” Her smirk morphs into a cruel smile. “I see he didn’t use his grandmother’s ring.”
I try to tug my wrist out of her hand, but her grip tightens painfully as she turns my wrist so that the massive diamond flashes at us in mutual mockery.
“What do you mean?” I ask, wincing from the pain. “He never mentioned a girlfriend.”
“Not a girlfriend. His fiancée,” she corrects me icily. “We’ve been engaged for so long that no one can remember when we weren’t, including us.”
My eyes stare into hers as the horrible memory replays in my mind, despite never wanting to see it again. Carole hunched over a moaning Tim, who is too wrapped up in his ecstasy to notice me standing in the doorway of our bedroom. Her mouth wrapped around his dick while he lies in our bed, enjoying it.The bastard.
“It’s not possible.” I begin to plead my innocence, and for a moment, my aching wrist is forgotten. “I don’t do that. I don’t steal other women’s men. I don’t break up relationships.”
“Spare me the theatrics,” Talia scoffs loudly, rolling her eyes.
“I’m serious,” I reply. “When I met Andrei, he didn’t mention being with someone. I didn’t …”
The words falter as the crushing pain on my now tender wrist intensifies. I wince from the pain as her iron-hard grip increases more than I thought humanly possible. My hand starts to tingle as the circulation is cut off. I try to break free, but that’s a mistake as Talia squeezes harder.
Nothing I say will convince Talia that I didn’t know. And it’s not like I’d believe myself either if our roles were reversed.
An attractive man with insane wealth in control of an army being single? How can a man like thatnothave a woman by his side? Or at least in his bed?
The hatred in her eyes convinces me that she’ll never believe anything I say, even if what I say is the truth. She would laugh if I told her I was kidnapped and forced to marry Andrei. Who would believe that a man like him wanted to kidnap a woman like me? But he did.
Andrei kidnapped me, and now his fiancée will make me pay the price.
