by Nicole Fox
“Sorry I’m late,” he says, taking his seat next to me without a glance in my direction.
“Quite alright,” his father says.
His mother hums in agreement. “We were just getting to know Eve. The food is delicious.”
“Do you want any?” I ask, my voice small and shy. I reach for his plate, but he waves a hand over it, shooing me away.
“I’m fine.”
I frown. “You don’t want any—”
“I’m fine,” he snaps, reaching around my arm for the bottle of wine and filling his glass.
I pull my hand back, trying to look unfazed, but confused tears sting the corners of my eyes. I take another bite of the dessert, but it tastes like ash in my mouth.
When everyone has pushed their plates to the center of the table, I’m eager to end the meal and hide out in my room. My room, not Luka’s. For days, I wanted him to come home. I wanted to talk to him about what was wrong, but now I don’t even want to be next to him. Because he isn’t himself right now. Not in the way I’ve come to know him in the past couple weeks. He is the Luka I met in the dining room of The Floating Crown—cold, unfeeling, and callous. Seeing him that way makes me feel sick.
“Well,” I say, my voice shaky. “Thank you all for the company, but I’m—”
“Could you stay for a minute?” Ivan asks, crossing his hands in his lap. It’s not a question.
Katerina recognizes the cue and stands up, straightening her sweater. She gives me an awkward smile as she practically flees the room. My heart hammers against my ribcage.
“Is something the matter?” I ask, turning to Luka. He won’t even look at me.
Ivan bobs his head from side to side in consideration. “You could say that.”
Sitting at the table with Luka on my right and Ivan across from me feels like I’m being cornered. There is no way to run for the door without being stopped by one of them. Since coming to live at the Volkov mansion, I’ve never felt truly afraid. I’ve never felt like my life was in danger. Aside from the chaos at the wedding, of course. But suddenly, chills begin to work their way up my arms and legs. Everything in my body is telling me to run. To flee. But I stay put, my fingers tangled tightly in my lap.
Ivan’s false smile falls away. “We know about your previous engagement.”
The words tumble around in my brain for a few seconds before I can even register what he is talking about. When I do, I’m too confused to properly defend myself. “What? How did—”
“We are not as foolish as you thought,” he says.
“I didn’t think you were foolish.” I turn to Luka, trying to understand why my broken engagement to a man I didn’t care about matters. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“You didn’t think it would be important for us to understand that you make a habit of seducing men who hold positions of high rank within their families?” Ivan asks, his words acidic.
“I didn’t seduce him. I didn’t even know him,” I shout, desperate to understand what any of this means. Luka won’t look at me or acknowledge anything I’m saying, and I want to shake him. I want to grab his face and force his green eyes to see me, but I’m too afraid of what he would do if I touched him.
“We should kill you.” Ivan leans back in his cheer, eyeing me like I’m the meal he came to consume. “You embarrassed my son, and you are a liability. Especially after the attack at the wedding.”
“I had nothing to do with that.” I feel like I’m shouting into a black hole, my words vaporizing into nothing.
Ivan rolls his eyes. “You are good at playing the role of the innocent. A fine damsel in distress, no?”
“Luka, please,” I whisper, desperate for him to correct his father. To tell him that I didn’t do anything wrong. His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t look at me.
“We are willing to spare your life, however, if you do one thing for us,” Ivan continues as if I haven’t spoken. “Let Luka impregnate you.”
I’m too numb to grasp what he is saying, so I sit there, staring at him, like I’m drugged. He continues.
“Your family, like ours, values the bond of family. So, if you were to become pregnant, the Furinos would be less of a threat to our family,” Ivan explains. “Your father, no matter how cruel, would never harm you or his grandson, even if that grandson will be a Volkov. It will further cement the peace we have attempted to create with this union.”
“We have peace,” I say, my entire body shaking. “My father won’t do anything to you or Luka or anyone. He wants this marriage to happen.”
“We are no longer sure of that. Plus, who is to say you won’t run away the way you did with the Irish gunrunner? Then, what will become of my family? A child would bond you to Luka and keep you from fleeing,” Ivan says. “Have Luka’s child, or die. Those are the choices.”
I stare down at the empty plates on the table, trying to understand how this conversation exists in the same reality in which I had dinner with Luka’s parents. It was only minutes ago that we were eating, but it feels like years, decades. I’m exhausted and confused and desperate to talk to Luka alone. To sort all of this out. If I can just get him by himself – away from his father – and find out what the hell is going on behind those infuriatingly ambiguous eyes, I’ll be able to figure a way out of this mess. But Ivan isn’t going anywhere until he gets what he wants.
So, I agree.
“I’m his wife,” I say weakly. “I planned to have his children, anyway.”
Ivan raises and eyebrow and Luka shifts slightly in his seat.
“Are you agreeing?” Ivan asks.
I nod. “Yes. I am.”
18
Eve
I lurk outside Luka’s office door, trying to find the courage to go inside. It has been a week since the disastrous family dinner, and I haven’t talked to him once. I’ve tried. Many times. But he is always rushing off somewhere, and he hasn’t even been coming back to the mansion to sleep. I’ve gone back to my guest room, but apparently, being just down the hall is still too close.
I can hear him working, tapping at his keyboard and shuffling things across his desk, and when I knock, everything goes silent.
He doesn’t move or breath or tell me to come in, and I wait for a few seconds before I’ve finally had enough, and I push the door open.
“No one said you could come in.” He doesn’t look up from his computer.
“I need to talk to you,” I say, beginning the speech I’ve been rehearsing for days. “My father arranged my marriage to the gunrunner. I didn’t even know him, and I had no interest in marrying him. Which is why the engagement fell through.”
“You had no interest in marrying me, either,” he says, finally looking up. His green eyes are pale like frost-covered leaves on a foggy morning. “Your father arranged our marriage. Does this mean our relationship will fall through, too?”
I sigh. “That isn’t what I meant. I’m just trying to say that—”
“I don’t much care what you’re trying to say, Eve.”
It goes to show how desperate I am for his attention that my heart stutters at the sound of my name on his lips.
“This marriage is a business arrangement, and since you nullified the terms by not disclosing your past relationships, a new agreement has been drawn.” He closes his laptop and leans back in his chair. His muscular forearms flex, and I wish I could hate him the way I once did. It would make everything so much easier.
“You really want to follow your father’s plan?” I ask, stepping forward and placing my palms on the edge of his desk. We are closer than we’ve been in days, and I can feel my body yearning to be close to him. “I will have a family with you, Luka. I agreed to this marriage. But not like this. As part of a deal? Is that how you want your firstborn to come into this world? Why can’t we wait until we are ready?”
“Because I don’t know that I won’t be murdered in my sleep while we wait,” he says. “I don’t know that your father won’t plan an
attack on my family, using you as his mole. We can’t wait until we are ready because I will never be ready to tie myself forever to a woman who is willing and able to manipulate me.”
“Manipulate you?” I ask, throwing my hands up, eyebrows drawn together. “Explain to me how I manipulated you to propose to me in the dining room of the restaurant I worked at? Explain to me how I had never met you, and yet somehow brainwashed you into carrying out my evil plan?”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” he snaps.
But I’m too angry to stop. “The proposal was your idea, and I turned you down first! You are the one who went to my father and told him about the arrangement. You defied your own father to make it happen. I didn’t force you to do any of that, Luka. You did it because you wanted to and no other reason, so don’t—”
Suddenly, he is standing up and leaning across the desk, his face inches from mine and a shade of angry red I’ve never seen before. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know what you were doing when you sashayed around our table and played hard to get, Eve. You played me and made me trust you, and I’ll never forgive you for that.”
Never.
The word rings in my head like a bell, and I see the truth of it in his eyes. Luka hates me. Maybe, at some point before and briefly after our marriage he didn’t, but he does now. Luka can barely stand the sight of me, and that alone makes me want to curl up and cry. What he says next seals the deal.
“I spoke with the family physician today. You were seen shortly before the wedding and had just ended your cycle, so the six-day window of when you are most likely to conceive begins today.” He pushes his chair under his desk and walks towards me. “So, we have to have sex.”
“We have to?” I blink.
He nods. “I won’t touch you outside this window, so don’t worry.”
He walks towards me, and I want to push him away and wrap myself in his arms. I’m not worried about him touching me. I’m worried he’ll never touch me the way he did before. That he’ll never caress my body and cherish it the way he did the night after our wedding.
“I don’t want to do this if you’re only doing it because you have to,” I say, stepping away from him. “I’m not some dog you brought here to breed.”
Something sparks behind his eyes, but it isn’t realization or awareness…it’s anger.
He grabs my arm just as I try to turn away and pulls me to him. His pupils are dilated, drowning the green in his eyes, and for the first time in a long time, I’m scared of him. “No, you’re just a bitch who made me look like a lovesick puppy. My father thinks I’m an idiot.”
“You aren’t an idiot.” I try to pull my arm out of his grip, but he is too strong. “I didn’t trick you, Luka.”
His grip tightens. “Stop saying my name.”
I lower my voice and look into his eyes, pleading. “Luka, please. You have to believe me. I had nothing to do with the attack at the wedding or the Irish mob or any of it.”
He pushes me back against the edge of his desk, his legs pinning my thighs in place. “I never should have trusted you.”
My heart breaks. He trusted me. Luka Volkov, the scariest man I’d ever met, trusted me. He let me in, and now, somehow, his father or the Irish mob or whoever had ruined it. They’d turned him against me, and I didn’t know how to get him back. I didn’t know how to convince him that I was telling the truth. That he should believe me.
He grabs the bottom of my dress and starts to lift, and I push his hand down. He starts to fight with me, and I know I can’t win. But I can remind him of who I am. Of who we are to one another. I’m his wife.
I grab the back of his neck and bring his face to mine. He is surprised, his lips firm and still against mine for a few seconds. I can practically hear him thinking about what to do, but I feel the moment he gives in. His body softens, and his fingers working at my hem go still. He slips his tongue into my mouth, and warmth spreads through me. I kiss him as though my life depends on it. I kiss him with everything I have, trying to convey to him that this has become more than a business deal to me. Not only do I not hate Luka Volkov, but I like him. And over time, I think I could come to love him. Our relationship doesn’t have to be cold and emotionless. It can be better.
His hands wrap around my back side and pull me to the edge of the desk. I can feel his hardness against my thigh, and I move to hook my legs around his hips, but he steps away and slides me all the way off the desk. I barely get my feet under me when Luka grabs my waist and spins me around so I’m facing away from him, palms flat on the desk. He lifts the back of my skirt, and I press my hips out as he unzips and positions himself. He is inside me in one thrust, and I am amazed by how much I missed it. How much I missed him.
I reach around and lay a hand on his thigh, feeling his muscles flex as he thrusts. He presses a hand on my spine, pushing me down on the table surface until my cheek is against the wood. I give myself over to him and the sensation of him inside of me. When his hand slips around my hip and finds my center, I gasp in surprise and relief. Electric shocks jolt down my legs, and my entire body is trembling beneath him.
“Luka,” I moan, pressing my forehead against the wooden desk to try and catch my breath. “Luka, it’s so good.”
His thrusts and finger increase in speed at the same time, and it feels like someone has turned the gravity off. I can no longer feel the floor beneath my feet, and I’m floating and screaming his name, shaking so hard things are falling off his desk. His breathing grows ragged at the same time, and I feel him climax.
I was too wrapped up in him to think about the arrangement. To think about anything other than having his body next to mine. But now I remember: he was trying to make a baby.
He pulls out of me, steps away, and zips up quickly. When I turn around and see his face, I realize I’d misunderstood everything. The sex was not an act of passion for him. His eyes are lifeless marbles in his head, and he can’t even look at me.
“The doctor said our chances are better if you climaxed, too,” he says as an explanation for why he still bothered to make the sex pleasurable.
“Luka,” I whisper, my lower lip trembling. “This isn’t just an arrangement for me. I never wanted to marry that man. He meant nothing to me, but you—”
“I have to go,” he says, tucking his shirt into his pants and running a hand through his hair. “I’ll be back later.”
He leaves me alone in his office, and I fall back against the edge and drop my face into my hands.
19
Eve
I walk straight from his office into the kitchen. I can’t bear going up to my room and sitting alone in the quiet. I need to stay busy.
I need to bake a cake.
The pantry has everything I need for a basic chocolate sponge cake and chocolate buttercream, but I decide to make a raspberry coulis to kick it up a notch. Creaming butter and sugar and measuring out dry ingredients clears my mind the way nothing has for the last week. It allows me to find a place of Zen that I’m in desperate need of, and I’ve never been more grateful to a kitchen in all my life.
Occasionally, when I step too far to reach something in the fridge or move to quickly from the pantry to the island, I feel the memory of him inside of me, still sore from his sheer size, but otherwise, I’m able to push thoughts of Luka from my head.
Until he shows up covered in blood.
I’ve just finished pureeing my raspberries with syrup, sugar, and lemon juice, and am pressing the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl when the front door slams open and Luka stomps into the kitchen. As soon as I see him, I drop the sieve and rush around the island.
“Are you okay?”
He is covered in blood. It is soaked into his shirt, splattered up his arms, and drenching his pants. I reach out to him, ready to search him for any cuts or wounds. I’ve never been comfortable around blood or the injured, but I’d stitch him up myself if it meant saving his life.
Luka brushes me away wi
thout touching me and moves to the sink. He turns on the faucet and sticks his bloody knife beneath the stream. That is when I realize the blood isn’t his.
Wordlessly, he cleans his knife, washes his hands, and tugs his t-shirt over his head. The muscles of his back—tinged with the blood that soaked through his shirt—ripple beneath his skin, and I look away before I can grow flushed by the mere sight of him.
Then, he balls up his shirt and leaves. I hear him pound up the stairs, and then a few minutes later, he bounds back down the stairs and out once again through the front door. I still haven’t moved.
I stand, frozen and shaken, in the kitchen until the timer for the cakes go off. After what I’ve just seen, it feels stupid to be making a three-layer chocolate cake, but I’ve come too far to let it burn now. So, I pull the cakes out, level them with a kitchen knife, and soak them with the raspberry coulis. Then, I stack them, spreading thick dollops of chocolate buttercream in between each layer.
Luka has been taking on more work since our falling out. He leaves early in the morning and doesn’t come back until late in the evening. When he does, he is covered in blood. I’m too afraid to ask specifically what he is doing, but I know it has to have something to do with the Irish mob. It is why my connection to the Irish gunrunner, is such a big deal. Luka and his father think my failed engagement to a member of the Irish mob is the reason some of the Volkov soldiers were killed at our wedding. They think I somehow plotted the attack and am trying to destroy them from the inside. So, they are holding me prisoner and killing the Irish mob one by one.
Even with that horrible thought in my head, I just want Luka to be safe.
