boss is here, too?
I hate the fluttering in my belly as I stare around Yan, searching for the most threatening and dangerous man in the room.
“Miss.” Yan repeats, impatiently this time.
“Why do I need to leave?”
“You have to.”
“Says who?”
“Boss.”
“Well, your boss doesn’t get to tell me what to do. And if he has something to say, why doesn’t he do it himself?”
Yan’s gaze shifts sideways as if he’s nervous or lost about what to do. “You can follow me willingly or I’ll have to carry you out by force.”
My lips part. “What the hell?”
“Orders are orders.”
“Are you a robot?”
He pauses at that as if he’s offended. “By force, then.”
Yan grabs my hand and pulls me down from the stool. I’m about to scream the whole place down when I catch a scene over Yan’s shoulder.
Adrian.
He’s wearing a black tux that flatters his tall, muscular body. It’s the first time I’ve see him in such formal clothes and it suits him to perfection, making him appear like the latest hot model on a men’s magazine. His hair is styled back and his lips are tilted in a smile.
One he doesn’t give me.
One that’s now directed at a slender blonde with stunning features and a bombshell body to go with it. She doesn’t need to be naked to showcase it either. Her red dress is long-sleeved and stops right above her knees. It’s modest and beautiful, giving her a classy look I could never pull off.
She touches Adrian’s arm as she speaks, and he continues smiling, obviously enjoying the gesture.
Yan follows my field of vision, then mutters, “Fuck.”
“Who is she?” I murmur, my tongue heavy in my throat.
“You don’t need to know.”
“Is that the reason your boss wants me away from here?”
Yan’s lack of words is the only answer I need. I don’t know what I’m thinking when I shove away from him and march toward them. If anything, it’s like I’m not thinking at all.
Yan calls after me, but I’m faster, barging through people and getting cursed a thousand times.
There’s been a burn in my chest ever since I saw Adrian with that woman. I don’t know if it’s because he never takes me out, yet he accompanied her to a grand opening, or because he’s smiling at her and never does at me.
Or because he stood me up tonight for her.
It’s probably all of the above.
I stop right in front of them. Adrian stares down at me like I’m a stranger he’s meeting for the first time.
Worse. It’s like I’m a rock in his shoe.
“Excuse me?” the blonde asks, and her voice is as soft and classy as she is.
I glare up at him. “Explain this.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Adrian’s cold, harsh words stab me deeper than anything ever has.
An elderly man joins our circle. His features are solemn and he speaks with a Russian accent, “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know, Papa.” The blonde stares between me and Adrian. “This woman came out of nowhere.”
The elderly man, her father, watches me with a critical eye, all while I stare speechless at Adrian, trying to figure out what the hell he just said.
It must’ve been a figment of my imagination. Adrian didn’t just imply that I’m a stranger in front of his date.
“Do you know her, Volkov?” the man asks.
“No.” Adrian doesn’t look at me, his voice casual.
If I thought his earlier words hurt, these ones cut so deep, I feel the knife digging inside. The bridge I felt forming between us this morning dissolves into thin air.
Yan finally catches up to me and tries to pull me back by my wrist. I snap out of my daze, attempting to wiggle away. “That’s not—”
“Throw her out,” Adrian says to Yan, jabbing the knife deeper.
The old man looks at me again. “Do you know my daughter’s fiancé, young lady?”
I freeze.
Did he just say his daughter’s fiancé?
My gaze shifts from him to his daughter’s questioning eyes and then back to Adrian’s cold gray ones, and the only answer I can give under the circumstances tumbles from my throat, “No.”
And with that, I let Yan drag me out.
I’m too stunned, too shocked, to move on my own, so I follow his steps mindlessly.
“You should’ve come with me the first time,” Yan mutters under his breath.
Maybe so, but if I had, I wouldn’t have been shaken by this wake-up call.
Adrian has a fiancée. All blonde and beautiful and Russian.
I was only a game to him all this time.
20
Adrian
It takes all of