Page 113 of Ivory Ashes

Wait, Viviana. Don’t go.

I choose you. I love you.

But nothing happens.

His warm hand doesn’t wrap around my wrist to draw me back. The rumble of his deep voice doesn’t shatter the deafeningly-loud silence.

I should disappear without another word—if he doesn’t come after me, he isn’t worth my time, anyway—but I don’t have quite enough self-respect for that. Instead, I stop in the doorway and face him.

Mikhail hasn’t moved, but Helen has. She’s standing just behind him now, her manicured claw clamped on his shoulder.

I want to snap her fingers off at the knuckle and jam them into her eyes.

“Go upstairs, Viviana,” Mikhail says coolly. “I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

“Are you—Are you dismissing me?” I growl. “So you can be with her?”

Helen smirks and… yep, I’m going to kill her. Mikhail, too.

With the fury boiling up inside of me, I wouldn’t be surprised if I could breathe fire. I’d turn them both to ash right now.

But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out. Not even when Mikhail says, “I’ll come talk to you next.”

“Don’t fucking bother,” I hiss.

Finally, I turn around and storm out.

Embarrassment and rage fuel me as I take the stairs two at a time and slam my bedroom door closed. But by the time I’m pacing the floor of my bedroom for the tenth time, it’s jealousy creeping through my veins.

I’m jealous that Mikhail is downstairs with Helen right now, giving her even a second of his attention when he should be upstairs with me.

It’s not fair to think a one-night stand would keep him from ever looking at another woman again, but I’m not in the mood for “fair” right now. I want Mikhail to tell me he never even thought about another woman after that night in the bridal suite. Helen? Never heard of her.

I want all of his thoughts to be consumed by me. I want to open up his closet and find a shrine to me plastered on his walls.

I’m tearing myself apart imagining some version of Mikhail sitting on his floor crafting a collage of my face when the man himself walks into my room, shoulders back, hands in his pockets.

I promptly lunge for the lamp next to my bed and hurl it at him.

It shatters against the wall, a good three feet away from his face.

“You missed,” he says flatly.

I stomp around the bed, prepared to grab the second bedside lamp and make sure I absolutely don’t miss this time. But Mikhail finally decides it’s time to stop me.

He grabs my arm and jerks me back. “No more throwing lamps.”

“Of course you’d say that. You’re the one who deserves to have a lamp thrown at his face.” I try to twist out of his hold, but his fingers are like iron around my wrist. “Let me go!”

He pulls me closer, pinning me between his body and one of the posts of my four-poster bed. “Talk to me.”

He smells delicious. It’s infuriating.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

No, I don’t. But I wish I did.

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