Page 66 of Preferential Treatment

“I want to be loved.”

“Then I’ll tell you I love you! Every fucking day! Will that bring you back?”

“Will you mean it?”

He couldn’t answer her.

“Is money the only thing you understand?” she asked tiredly.

“It’s the only thing that matters.”

“And that’s why I can’t be with you.”

“I misspoke,” he said quickly. “You matter, too.”

“Would you give up your money to be with me?”

“You know my net worth is all in Domovoy. It would mean giving up control of my company. My life’s work.”

“You’re right. That’s asking too much.”

Mikhail stared at her. The words sounded right, but he sensed she was slipping even further out of his reach. “I’ll give you shares. If you come back to me, I’ll give you half my shares.”

She frowned. “You wouldn’t be majority shareholder, then.”

“We would be.” The idea warmed him.

He could see her indecision—all that wealth would be an intoxicating pull, but was it enough?

“I don’t want that responsibility. I don’t…” she shook her head, at a loss. “Sitting on a board and voting on corporate decisions had never appealed to me.”

“Then what do you want? Tell me, I’ll give it to you.”

She sighed. “I want you to be somebody you’re not. Somebody who has a heart. Somebody I can trust with mine. If you can’t be that, then let me go.”

He had no choice. He stood back and watched her walk away. A crushing breathlessness stole over him as he returned to his desk. All the money in the world, and he couldn’t buy the one thing he wanted most.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

After quitting Domovoy, Kate had a lot of free time on her hands. She hadn’t yet found a new job, but fortunately, she had nearly forty thousand dollars socked away from Mikhail’s weekly payments. She’d be alright for a few weeks, or even months.

So, in between sending out resumes and enduring pointless phone conversations with recruiters offering shit jobs with shit pay, she decided it was time she finally learned to cook. She told herself it was because cooking was a crucial life skill. Deep down, she knew it was because she was desperate for a distraction from Mikhail—it was impossible to deny when she kept using her dented old aluminum stock pot instead of the gorgeous enameled cast iron dutch oven that a certain billionaire had purchased for her.

She couldn’t talk to Anna or Naomi about it. She’d signed an NDA. And while she trusted them not to run their mouths, she couldn’t bring herself to break the confidence she’d promised to Mikhail. So instead, she threw herself whole-heartedly into trying to recreate her favorite meals from childhood.

But as she stared at the bubbling muck that she’d failed, for the third time, to turn into an edible meal, she had to admit that it wasn’t going very well. She’d seen her sister make it a hundred times when they were kids. Spicy chicken casserole. It had looked so easy. Canned chicken, canned cream soup, some veggies, some noodles, and some spices. But every time Kate tried, it was an inedible mess.

She was scraping her third attempt into the trash when her phone lit up. She glanced at it, feeling her heart squeeze at the same time her stomach dropped. She kept hoping it was Mikhail. She also kept dreading it was Mikhail. If he asked her again, she knew she’d give in. She wanted to give in. She also wanted to keep her pride.

She picked up the phone and blew out a breath. Not Mikhail. It was her sister.

“Angel?” she answered hesitantly. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Hey, do you know some, like, Eastern European guy named Michael?”

Kate froze. “Michael? Or Mikhail?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Wears an expensive suit. Looks like he doesn’t even smile on his birthday.”

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