Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(41)

“No, Alex. I hope you don’t believe that. If you do, then he really is right and you have no common sense.” I catch the hurt flash across her features and immediately regret my words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Not that way. It’s just . . . he’s an ass**le. He talks down to you. He was out f**king some bartender last night; we both know that.” She flinches. “Hell, I’ve seen him slap you around!”

“I know,” she admits in a whisper.

I sigh. “How much older is he than you, anyway?”

She turns away from me to look out the window. “He’s forty-two. Twenty years older than me.”

“You’re only twenty-two?” I’m two years older than her. For some reason, I assumed she just looked young. I try to picture an eighteen-year-old Amber bringing home a guy like Viktor Petrova to meet my parents. To tell them that she’s marrying him. My dad would have his gun out in under five seconds. Where the hell were her parents in all this? Who was there to say, “Whoa! Hold up. This guy is all wrong for you!” For all that my parents are and have been, they’ve always made sure I know where they stand on my choices and my mistakes.

“Do your parents like him?” I can’t imagine anyone wanting their eighteen-year-old daughter to marry a man twenty years older.

She sighs. “I never met my dad, so I guess I don’t need his permission.”

“And your mom?”

“My mother would have married him for herself if he was willing.” Her lips press together. “She worked right up until the day that she collapsed from cancer. Twenty-five years of working with cleaning chemicals. She died before the wedding. I have nothing, no one, without Viktor.”

“And he knows it, Alex. Buying you expensive cars and jewelry doesn’t give him any right to treat you like this.”

“Well, what should I do, Jesse? Just pack a bag and leave?” She stares at her hands in her lap. “I want to finish school so I can get a real job first.”

“So you’re just going to put up with a cheating, abusive husband for how many more years? And what if he wants kids?”

“He doesn’t, believe me.” There’s venom in her voice, and I can tell there’s more to this topic of kids that she’s not telling me. “He doesn’t want me in school anymore. He said he’s not paying the tuition. My job is to take care of him. That’s why he married me. Apparently I haven’t been doing that well enough since school started.”

“I assume you signed a pre-nup?”

She shakes her head.

“Seriously? Well, hell! Take half his money and run!”

Another quick head shake. “I wouldn’t even know how to ask for a divorce from Viktor. Besides, it’s his money. He earned it.”

“What do you know about that, anyway? About how he earns his money?” It feels like the wrong word to use in relation to Viktor Petrova.

She shrugs. “He owns a company with a few business partners. They sell all kinds of cars . . . trucks . . . even boats and stuff . . . for companies and for the public. They have sales offices all over the world.”

“And you think it’s all aboveboard?”

She pauses. “It’s a publically traded company. They sell cars for insurance companies, dealerships, banks. It’s all on his website.”

So she’s looked into it. I wonder if it was due to curiosity or doubt. I rephrase my question. “Do you think everything he’s involved in is aboveboard?”

I get a look. A look that tells me she at least suspects that Viktor isn’t necessarily on the straight and narrow with everything.

The gas station is seven miles up the road and we close the rest of the distance in silence. I make her wait in the car as I fill up a can I keep in my trunk.

The rain has eased up by the time we get back to the BMW twenty minutes later. She rolls down the window as the engine purrs again, tapping the gas gauge. “Do you think this is enough to get me to the gas station? The needle hasn’t moved.”

With my arm on the roof, I stick my head into the car to check it. “Yeah . . . It’ll climb up in a second. But I’ll follow you to the gas station and then home, just in case.”

“Okay.” Her breath tickles the side of my neck.

With only a second’s consideration, I do what I shouldn’t. I turn toward her parted lips. Her face is mere inches from mine, so close that I can see the red and gold flecks that give her eyes that unique color. So close that I barely have to lean in to kiss her.

I know that she is Viktor Petrova’s wife.

But I don’t care right now.

Because I want her to know who I really am.

Before I can change my mind, I lean in and let my mouth skate over hers, mimicking her own bold move from that night, a memory that I can’t shake. It takes everything in me to pull away. When I do, I see the recognition in her eyes.

“Oh my God,” she whispers, and her fingers find their way to my mouth. Her mouth is still hanging open, her own chest heaving.

This can’t happen.

I slap the roof and sprint back to my car before I do something even more stupid than I already have.

The garage door closes softly behind her.

I should acknowledge her, say something. Not just stand there like an idiot, staring. But I can’t help it. She’s changed into a sweatshirt and track pants and washed all her makeup off. She looks like any other ordinary twenty-two-year-old, like a girl my sister might hang out with.