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“If you’re not making a baby,” he said, “then surely you have the energy to finish the rest of your chores.”
“What?” I was shocked by his lack of sympathy, though I don’t know why. This kind of icy callousness was on par with each of my husband’s moves.
I rolled back the covers and swung my legs over the side.
He clapped his hands, startling me. “Come on. Let’s go, let’s go,” he snapped, addressing me like a disobedient dog.
My heart jumping into my throat, I surged off the mattress, slid into my slippers, and grabbed the robe I’d flung over the end of the bed.
He spoke to me over his shoulder as I followed him into the hall. “The floor needs to be mopped and the china needs to be cleaned.”
My eyes rounded. “The china?”
“Yes.”
Viktor’s most coveted possession was his china collection, passed down from his great-grandmother. Two twenty-piece sets of rare red porcelain china that were valued at $2.2 million.
I’d never touched them. I wouldn’t dare.
That night, my husband stood over me like a sentinel as I cleaned every piece of his precious china, a detailed process that took five painstaking hours.
That night, instead of hating him, I began to hate myself.
10
Justin
Isprinted to the SUV, fired up the engine, and hit the gas, sliding on a patch of ice before pulling onto the road. Sophia had a three-minute start on me, but if she drove anything like she did the night before, I figured I’d have no problem catching up to her.
I was wrong.
I caught a flash of red as she turned onto the narrow road that led to her house.
The SUV slid as I braked, stopping no more than a foot from the ditch. After righting the vehicle, I slammed my foot on the accelerator but realized Sophia was already out of sight—again.
This was definitely not the slow, cautious driver from the night before. This was Mario Andretti. Sophia was driving so carelessly that I was certain she was going to end up in a ditch, or worse, down a ravine.
This wasn’t how I’d expected our first meeting to go. And mostly, it was my fault.
I couldn’t control my rage when I saw the drunken asshole put his hands on her. It felt like someone poured gasoline on my body and lit a match. But still, it didn’t make sense that she’d bolt like she did. The hunters were no longer a threat to her—so, what the hell spooked her? What was she running from?
Me.It was the only viable explanation. But why?
Ramping over a drift of snow, I pulled into her driveway.
Sophia wasn’t there.
Frowning, I shoved the SUV into park and got out. There were no fresh tire tracks or boot prints in the snow, no lights on inside the house.
“Shit.”
I’d been so preoccupied contemplating why she ran from me that I didn’t notice the absence of tire tracks in the snow.
Spitting out expletives, I reversed out of the driveway and picked up the tracks that passed her house and led deeper into the forest.
Where the hell was she going?
Minutes turned into miles. Turn after turn convinced me that Sophia was intentionally trying to lose me.
