Page 114 of Ivory Ashes

“Don’t tell me what I feel.” I fidget, but Mikhail is like a brick wall. A warm, fragrant, well-muscled wall. “You don’t get to send me up to my room like a child while you talk to your fiancée and then?—”

“Ex-fiancée.”

“Oh, no,” I drone. “Down from two wives to zero. How sad for you.”

He drags his calloused finger over my pulse point. “Your heart is racing.”

I slap his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“But you like it so much,” he says with a smirk.

After everything that just happened, he has the audacity to smile? To tease me? Even worse, my heart has the audacity to speed up. I feel like a sexually charged hummingbird. I hate him for it.

I slam my fist into his chest. I’m more likely to break my hand than hurt Mikhail, but I can’t just stand here. I have to do something.

“You lied to me.” I hit him again. “I asked you if you had a wife. The first day we met, I saw those fucking roses on your desk and I asked you if you had a wife?—”

“I didn’t have a wife,” he explains, grunting as I continue to hit him. “I also didn’t answer the question.”

He dodged it. The same way he dodges everything he doesn’t want to discuss.

The same way he dodges the fist I aim at his square jaw.

It’s enraging to hit nothing but empty space, but I should’ve known he’s too fast, too calm for me to land so much as a single blow on that smug face of his. Fuming, I step back and brush my hair out of my eyes. “You really think you’re above reproach here? You were engaged. That’s information you should have shared.”

He arches a brow. “If you want to get into a fight about which of us has kept more important information from the other, I’ll win.”

He’s talking about Dante, but there’s more I haven’t told him…

More secrets hanging over us like anvils on fraying strings.

Right now, I wouldn’t mind so much if a few of them dropped. It would put me out of this misery.

“Engagement isn’t legally binding. But what you and I did?” He spins my rainbow-colored ring around my finger. “It’s official.”

“Screw the law. What matters to me is that that woman down there was planning to marry you!”

He curls my hand up in his and pins it against his chest. I can feel his heart beating against my wrist. “Too bad for her, I’m already married.”

“Under duress,” I remind him, putting as much space between us as possible. Which, right now, is about six inches. “I married you under false pretenses and coercion.”

“What about when you came on top of my desk today—twice? That wasn’t under duress.”

“Being a good fuck doesn’t make you a good person.”

If it did, Mikhail would be the best person in the world. Saint-like levels of goodness.

Blood thrums through me, pooling in places I wish it wouldn’t. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. Can feel it between my legs.

“I never claimed to be a good person, Viviana.” His fingers slip around my hand, tracing the lines of my palm. I hate that he’s being gentle with me now like he didn’t just rip my heart out of my chest.

But goosebumps bloom across my skin. My mind and body are clearly not on the same wavelength.

“I remember. You said you’d be the worst possible thing for me.” I stretch onto my toes, upper lip curled back in a snarl. “I think you undersold yourself.”

Mikhail holds my gaze for a second. His icy blue eyes are penetrating. I’m positive he can read every confused, lust-drenched thought in my head.

Whatever he sees there, he decides to slam my wrist against the post above my head and press our bodies flush together. “Then let me amend a few things.”

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