Page 63 of A Monster Is Coming

“Try me.”

“First, you have to become me, and then everyone has to bow down to you,” he said.

I wrinkled my nose. “I think I’ll pass.”

“You don’t think you could be me for a day?” he asked.

I remembered him in the hospital. It was a vague memory but one I still had. He’d been so broken. Even though the man who stood before me now was a strong, self-assured, confident specimen, he hadn’t always been.

“Why doesn’t anyone know you’ve been married?” I asked.

Ivan looked at me. “Have you told Peter?”

“No. It’s not my news to tell and if you wanted them to know, you would have been the one to tell them.” I glanced down at the brown paper bags in Ivan’s hands and my curiosity got the better of me. “What do you have?”

“Lunch.”

He moved toward the dining room.

I was tempted to ignore him and just stay kneeling on the sofa. Ivan was too much of a temptation.

My guards didn’t talk to me. I didn’t have a lot of conversation and I was still pissed at Peter.

Climbing off the sofa, the temptation to run to the dining room just so I could keep talking to him, was strong. What kind of loser did this make me?

I arrived at the dining table, and Ivan was setting it for not just two people, but three.

“Who else is joining us for lunch?” I asked.

“Peter will be along shortly.”

“How do you know?”

“I have my ways of knowing what irritates husbands. I seem to have that effect on people when they want to keep their wives close.” Ivan did that wink thing again.

I rounded the table so I was on the opposite side, and lowered down into my chair. I didn’t know if I could trust Ivan.

“You enjoy irritating other men?”

“I do,” Ivan said.

Truthfully, I was surprised.

“You’re not going to answer my previous question.”

“No.”

“Do you always get what you want?” I asked.

“No.”

He finished unpacking the lunch, and then sat down in the seat opposite me. Neither of us broke eye contact. “With how the two of us met, you know I don’t get everything I want.”

I pressed my lips together because he was right. He’d lost someone he loved.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. There is nothing I can do to change it. All I can do now is look forward to the future. So, you and Peter, when are you trying again?”

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