Champagne Venom (Orlov Bratva, #1)(55)

“No, but he did take his belt to our backs when we disobeyed him. He was a hard man.”

“Cruel,” she corrects. “You mean cruel.”

“I don’t know if I would say that. He was just trying to prepare us for life. And we both know life is cruel.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I could argue the same about my parents. But they weren’t trying to protect me from anything. They were just trying to make their lives as easy as possible, and I got in the way of that.” I notice how her hand flutters nervously over her stomach. “Children are not easy.”

“No,” I agree. “But in my world, they’re necessary. My father was the don. He was required to have

children to carry his name and, ultimately, his legacy.”

“That’s part of the rulebook, too, huh?” she asks softly. “I guess it’s convenient that I’m already pregnant then. There’s one expectation out of the way.”

“I would have managed without an heir,” I say. “I have my nephew to leave the Bratva to.”

“So you would have been fine never having children?” she asks.

“Children are one thing; mothers are another. That was a complication I wanted to avoid.”

“Until you got stuck with me.”

I’m not sure how she expects me to respond to that. Her eyes are searching, waiting for something that she’s not going to get. I can feel myself disappointing her as the silence closes over us. I warned her I couldn’t go down this road. I warned her not to try.

She bites her lip. “Did you ever think that if you threw out your rulebook, you might just be happier?”

“I don’t want to be happy,” I tell her bluntly. “I don’t trust happiness. What I want to be is on top.”

“It can be lonely at the top.”

I meet the sadness in her eyes with the steel in mine. “Perhaps. But at least it will be quiet.”





41

PAIGE

“No one wants to be alone,” I say firmly.

I know that better than anyone. Before Clara entered my life and the world bloomed into Technicolor, I felt lonely. But that loneliness of the before time was nothing compared to the bottomless well of isolation I experienced after she was gone.

“Wrong,” Misha says. “I do.”

I squint at him. “You know what I think?”

“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

“I think it’s not that you want to be alone; you just don’t want to be hurt,” I say. “I think that it’s just a front you’re putting up to protect yourself. I’m no shrink, but—”

“You don’t say?” he drawls.

I ignore him. “But I know a thing or two about lost and lonely people. I’ve been surrounded by enough of them. I’ve been one.”

Maybe I still am.

“And that’s what you think I am?” His voice is laconic, sarcastic, full of thorns designed to keep me away. But I won’t be dissuaded. “Lost and lonely?”

I look past him to the bed I’ve slept in every night alone. “That’s exactly what I think you are.”

“Then I’m sorry to tell you, but your hard-won wisdom is bullshit. I’m not lost or lonely.” He walks over to the bed and removes his shirt. “I’m just tired.”

“Are you sleeping here tonight?” I ask.

He looks down at the bed and back at me. It’s easy to see the mindlessness of what he’s doing. Just pacing the same steps he’s always walked—at least, until I came along.

But things have changed now.

For both of us.

“Oh, I get it,” I say before he can answer, nodding at him with over-the-top faux sympathy. “You’re nervous to spend a night with me. You’re worried I’ll cross all the boundaries you’ve created and make you want something beyond the clinical, business-only arrangement we’ve struck.”

His gaze turns cold. Flecks of ice sparkling in the lamp light. I’ve hit a nerve, it seems.

“You’re very confident for someone who doesn’t know a fucking thing,” he growls. There’s a new ripple of undercurrent in his voice. This one is dangerous.

I shrug. “There is a reason you offered to buy me pizza the night we met. There is a reason you invited me up to your hotel room.”

“You’re right,” he sighs. “Because you were closer than the woman on the other side of the bar.”

I flinch back at the bite in his tone. Even though it hurts, I recognize he’s just trying to keep me at arm’s length. More thorns. Let them tear me apart; I don’t give a shit anymore.

“Bullshit.” I walk over and join him next to the bed. “Tell me the truth. Why did you pick me?”

Suddenly, I’m annoyed with my homely, oversized clothes. I want to make his heart race. I want to make him feel something.

He looks me over. “You were the more interesting option.”

“Interesting?” I raise my brows. “Is that a compliment?”

“You can interpret it however you’d like.”

“Fine. I interpret it as you finding me ravishing. Jaw-dropping. Ethereally beautiful, like an angel descended to Earth. You’d never seen a woman more stunning, and you had to have me or you’d die.”