Champagne Venom (Orlov Bratva, #1)(68)

Sighing, I admit defeat and walk into the kitchen. “Fine. I’m hungry. Sue me.”

He grabs a bowl of creamy tomatoes and adds a generous layer to the tops of the crostini. Then he places three on a plate and pushes it towards me. “Your appetizer.”

“Wow.” I breathe in the delicious, earthy smell. “This is heavenly.”

I devour two of the three crostini and by the time I’ve picked up the third one, I’ve forgotten the whole reason I stormed out of this kitchen in the first place.

“This is incredible. You are—This is the best food I’ve tasted in… ever.”

“Jace won’t be happy to hear that.”

“Then don’t tell him.” I take a bite of my third crostini and then stare at it lovingly. “I promised myself that if I were lucky enough to become a mother one day, I would make my kids home-cooked meals all the time.”

“Yeah?”

I shrug. “That was before I realized that boiling water was a challenge for me. But at least our kid will have a father who can cook.”

His good humor evaporates. Whatever easy peace we’d momentarily settled into is gone in the pinch of his brows.

“I know you’re the big bad don and all, but surely you’ll have time to cook for our kid, right?” I ask.

His eyes meet mine, and I can see the hesitance in them. “What do you want from me, Paige?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I guess I just want you to be… yourself.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“What if I do?” I ask, abandoning my crostini so I can move closer to him.

For just a moment, he leans in. He’s close enough that I can smell the fresh herbs on his breath. I can feel the heat coming off of him and it lights me up inside.

“Careful, kiska. Wishes sometimes come true.”

“Okay then,” I say. “I wish to be introduced to your family. I wish to meet your mother.”

His eyes narrow into slits. Then he turns away from me and pours two servings of gleaming, pan-seared shrimp from the skillet into plates already loaded with spiced quinoa and roasted vegetables.

Clearly, me storming out of the kitchen didn’t make much of an impression. He was still making me a plate.

I shift around so I can see his profile. “Asking to know my mother-in-law isn’t such a big request. I mean, that’s normal.”

He turns and looks me over from head to toe. I get the sense he’s seeing me the way he imagines his mother might. It’s making me self-conscious, but maybe that’s the whole point.

“Do you really think she’d approve of you?” he asks.

“I’m probably not what she’s expecting.”

“No,” he says definitively. “You’re not.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing. I bet you didn’t think I could hold my own at the office when everyone was taking cheap shots at me. I bet you didn’t think I could handle Petyr Ivanov on my own, either.

And I did both those things. I stood my ground and I defended myself.”

He arches a brow, unconvinced, so I plow ahead. “And you know what? I’m going to continue to prove you wrong. I have a board meeting tomorrow with the other department heads. I’ll hold my own there, too.”

“Those men are not so easily convinced.”

“Guess I’ll have to use all my charms then, won’t I?”

He pushes a plate towards me, but he doesn’t say a word. I have a feeling he’ll be watching me tomorrow as closely as the rest of them.

Fine. So what if I’ve talked myself into a corner?

It’s time to punch my way out of it.





50

PAIGE

The next morning, I wake up to an empty bed.

I don’t expect anything different at this point, but I still slide out from under the comforter as quickly as possible. The sooner I move on to the rest of my day, the sooner I can forget how it started.

I stretch and head towards the bathroom, but on my way there, I notice a pale blush box placed neatly on the bench at the foot of the bed.

“Here we go again,” I mutter. It’s probably a crown bedazzled with the family jewels for me to wear.

Or maybe a collar with a big “O” for “Orlov” on it, just so the world knows who I belong to now.

I flip open the lid with a quick jerk, ready to get this over with.

Then I stop.

It’s not jewels inside the box, but fabric. I stroke my hand over the softest pair of white trousers I’ve ever felt. I pull them out, careful not to crease them, and find a pale pink blouse beneath them that matches the lid. There’s a bow at the neck, as well as a pair of nude heels with a bow at the back of the ankle and a heel thick enough that I don’t have to worry about toppling over.

An embossed piece of cardstock tucked into the side of the box reads “Consciously Created.”

He got me a gift. Not an off-the-cuff “throw money at her feelings” monstrosity he found on the nearest mannequin at Gucci, not an Orlov heirloom designed to remind me who my new masters are, but a gift. The kind that says, I was thinking about you.

An outfit for today’s board meeting, made by artisans who care about the environment, crafted for my taste and body and values.