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“Do you like this place?” Vlad asked, calling my attention.
I loved this place. It was my first time having a fancy dinner with a man, and I’d bagged a handsome man at that. I felt like I’d just checked something off my bucket list. “I’ve not had a fancy dinner before now.”
“So, I’m your first?”
It burnt my pride to admit it. “Yes. You’re my first everything.” And you’ll probably be the last.
I’d lived for twenty-six years and not once in my life had I been attracted to a man the way I was attracted to Vlad. It would probably take another twenty-six years to find a man I would like this much—if that would even ever happen.
If he wasn’t Vlad, then I was fairly certain I didn’t want him. No one could hold a candle to his cocky smiles whenever he said something humorous. No man could look perfect in long hair and earrings or with viper and rose tattoos crawling up their neck.
Vlad was the only one who could pull that and still look perfect. That could be the reason I was attracted to him.
His gaze on me softened. “I could bring you here whenever you want.”
I held my hand up. “This won’t happen a second time. I’m not here because I want to keep playing around with you. Matter of fact, I came here to tell you this would be the last time we’d be meeting.”
He propped his hand on the table. “Why? Are you going somewhere?” Something flashed in his eyes. Fear? Was he going to miss me if I was actually going somewhere? I didn’t like this version of him. The version that looked so sincere and innocent. He was better off looking like he could pull a gun at anyone and at any time.
“No.” I inhaled. I didn’t like this pang of pity beating in my heart for him. “I meant that this will be the last time we meet each other.”
Our food arrived and the waitress set in on the table, pouring each of us a glass of wine before she left with the tray.
I cut through my steak, bringing a piece to my lips and chewing it. I moaned. It was tender and deliciously flavored. I didn’t notice Vlad staring at me until I climbed down from the high of the expensive steak. “What?”
“You seem to be enjoying the steak.”
“You should eat too. The food here is tasty.”
A smile played on his lips. “I’m filled just watching you eat.”
I chewed my steak carefully, sipping my wine to push it down easily. The steak was juicy, of course. It was my throat that had gone dry from hearing Vlad say something so flirtatious.
He was always flirting with me, but it managed to catch me off guard every single time. “I’ll eat mine, then I’ll eat yours too,” I said, unsure of how to react and blushing.
Surprisingly, he pushed his plate to me. “It’s all yours. Too bad you’ll never get a chance to see the beautiful view in front of me.”
By beautiful view, he was referring to me. I was his beautiful view. Butterflies gained wings in my stomach, it wasn’t supposed to be so. “About what I was saying, Vlad. Tonight will be the last time we see each other.”
“That’s not up to you to decide,” he argued. His voice oddly calm. “Don’t think of running from me, Mariana. There’s nowhere in the world you’ll go that I can’t find you.”
“I’m not running.” I dropped my cutleries and they clinked on the dinnerware. “It’s just … we’re from two different worlds. You’re part of the mafia, and I’m just a girl who wants to sell paintings and take care of my mother. We’re too different.”
“By whose standards?” He rested back, his blue eyes boring into mine. “Who decided that we’re too different?”
“Me. I made that decision. I think I’m falling for you, and I can’t let that happen. We need to stay away from each other.”
He grinned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I refuse to stay away from you.”
“But…”
“You think you know everything about me? Well, you don’t.” My attempt to read through his blank mask was a failure. “I agree, the mafia was all I knew before I met you. My parents were brutally murdered when I was much younger, Sergey raised us in the best way he could. Being by his side was the only thought I had growing up.”
My flood froze. His parents were murdered? How did I miss that when I’d searched up Sergey so much, all my ads were about him and his companies.
The news said they died from a car accident but it wasn’t an accident all along?
Vlad and his brothers lost their parents at such a young age. I couldn’t begin to imagine how that felt. How he—they—felt especially knowing someone stole their parents from them.
