“Or are you even wearing panties?” My hand drifted back down her torso, descending toward her mound. “Maybe I should check, huh?”
“Stop.”
I stopped. And ground my teeth together painfully. “Why could he do it, but I can’t touch what’s legally mine?”
The bubble popped.
She flung my hands from her body and wheeled sharply around to pierce me with her sapphire stare. “Marriage or not, I’ll never be yours.”
She never looked back as she marched away.
I let her go.
I didn’t know what else to do. Not even forty-eight hours in and my head was already fucked up over this situation. I desperately needed to get it back on straight.
Thank God, we’d be back in Brooklyn tomorrow.
Back in my territory where I’d finally be able to get a handle on how the hell I’d gone into Russia a single, carefree bachelor and come out of it an irritated, stressed-out husband with a mind-boggling wife.
I followed about twenty yards behind her the entire walk back to the villa.
By the time I fell into bed, the knot in my neck had never been worse.
Brooklyn, New York. My new home.
Blyad’.
How was this even real? How was this happening? I felt like a bloody a mail-order bride, being delivered to my new life like an Amazon package. Guaranteed two-day delivery.
Nico and I were back to non-speaking terms. He’d had one last business meeting earlier that morning before we left Istria. Then he’d whisked me away on his private jet where we once again flew in stoic silence for most of the trip.
He’d conducted business, I’d tried to read. He’d made phone calls, I’d attempted to sleep. He’d looked too temptingly handsome in his tailored suit, I did my best not to notice.
As far as I was concerned, the night before at the club never happened. He seemed to be on the same page. I mean, I wanted to punish the hell out of him for his presumptuous, domineering behavior. But I knew that today marked the beginning of something we’d need to join forces in order to undertake. We didn’t have to like each other to remain married for the next couple—hopefully not more than that—months. We just had to be civil and stay out of each other’s way.
And not kill each other.
Me sulking over his crass words would do nothing to help the situation. When I stepped off the plane at the private airport just outside of Brooklyn, I decided I needed to put on my big girl panties and deal with my new circumstances.
I cleared my throat as we left the airport in the back of another town car. “So, uh, are we heading to your home now?”
He lifted his gaze from his phone to toss me a side glance, seeming baffled that I was even speaking to him. And rightly so. “Yes,” he answered, sounding a tad wary. “I live in an area of Brooklyn called Bay Ridge.”
I perked up a little. “It’s near the water?”
His finger paused over his phone’s screen. “Yes. Right on the East River.”
I’d always wanted to live near the water. I didn’t know why. The ocean, a lake, a river, hell, I’d take a pond. I’d just always liked the idea of looking out my window to a view like that.
I did my best to conceal my nerves as we traveled closer and closer to our destination. I didn’t want him to see how out of sorts I was, but I couldn’t deny my level of anxiety had risen ever since we’d touched down on U.S. soil.
“I hope you have enough room for me.”
Silence. “Sorry?”
Just as I’d watched the Russian countryside flash past the windows as we’d left my father’s estate, I took in my new surroundings. And the cityscape of Brooklyn couldn’t have been more different from Batya’s sprawling country property.
“Your house,” I clarified. “You weren’t expecting to bring someone back with you. Will there be enough space so that we won’t be stepping on each other’s toes?”
I wasn’t about to apologize for being an inconvenience. He’d agreed to my father’s stipulation of marriage—no one had forced him into that. It was really his fault we were even in this mess. Screw him if he was inconvenienced. I only meant that I wanted enough space away from him, and I hoped his house was big enough for that.
His mouth tipped up in the corners. “I think space is the one thing we won’t have to worry about.
Because God knows we have enough issues already was the unspoken part