Page 31 of Caught By the Bratva Beast

If she ever looks at me with those tears in her eyes again, I think I would do everything to stop them from appearing. I’d hunt down anyone who'd ever hurt her and I'd cut their heads from their shoulders. They'd know what it was like to feel real pain just for making her cry.

And if I did that, I'd have to kill myself for making her cry tonight.

Chapter 10 - Pearl

Aesha sips her coffee as she sits across from me. “I didn't think you would be back home this soon. I thought you said you'd be gone for a week. Maybe more. You were gone for two days and now you’ve been back for ten. What the hell happened? I was looking forward to you being away and getting laid.”

“I know. Things were going good and then Maxim said that he had business that he had to come back to. To be honest, I think it was because I didn't want to sleep with him.”

“But you said the kiss was good. You said that you've never been kissed like that. At least that's what the text messages said that night.”

“It was good. Too good. Men like him know what they’re doing, and they do it well. They're only looking for one thing, and I'm getting tired of being that kind of woman.”

She rolls her eyes. “You can't call yourself that kind of woman when you don't sleep with your clients, you go out with them, you make some money. You’re not out there having sex with half of New York.”

“Somehow I don't think that makes it any better anymore.”

“You're sitting here and beating yourself up about this when you could be talking to him.”

I pick at the little croissant on the plate in front of me, peeling away one flaky layer after another, but leaving the pastry sitting on the ceramic. “I don't even know if I want to know what went wrong. I don't think I mean that much to him anyway.”

“You wouldn't be sitting here in a cafe with me on a gorgeous day when you could be out with a hot guy covered in tattoos. You sent me that picture of him. If I were you, I'd be jumping on that the first chance I got.”

“Let's say that I wanted to. Even if I did, he hasn't talked to me since we got back. It’s been ten days without so much as a single message.” I scoff, peeling out one of the chocolate layers from the croissant and popping it into my mouth. “I should have known that he was going to lose interest in me after two days. Especially, when I don't want to jump into bed with him. It's how they work.”

“You've made a lot of money off men wanting to sleep with you but not doing it.” You know that that's not how they work. You know that you're interesting enough to keep their attention without putting out, so why are you sitting here and putting yourself down and making yourself feel miserable when you could talk to him?”

“Because there's more going on than simply being able to talk to him.”

“Is this part of the secret side of your life that you never told me about?” Aesha asks, her tone teasing, but concern creasing the corners of her lips. “I know there are things you don't want to talk to me about, but if this is something big you can tell me.”

“It's nothing.”

“Oh, I’m no fool, Pearl. I think that you can go around pretending that nothing matters to you because everybody's left you in your life. You hold yourself at a distance from everybody who tries to get close because you want to protect yourself.”

“Guess I don't need to pay for a therapist. You've already diagnosed me.”

Aesha swipes a finger through the remaining whipped cream on the top of her coffee. “Look, for what it's worth you seemed happy when you were in Russia. The messages you were sending me made it seem like you were having a fun time over there.”

“I was.”

“And not once in those two days before this incident did, he make a move on you. He was fine with just spending time with you.”

“He was, but I'm fairly sure it's because he thought I would give in. Eventually, when he realized, I never was going to, that's when everything went weird between us, and he decided that we were going to return to New York for a supposed business emergency.”

“If he hasn't lied to you before, why do you think he has reason to lie now?”

Aesha has a point, as much as I would rather not admit it. There could have been a business emergency that Maxim had to take care of. There might have been a legitimate reason to come back to the city early.

However, it's hard to believe that when the plan to get him hooked and keep him close has failed so miserably.

Nicolo made it seem like all Maxim wanted to do was chase women and sleep with them. Now I'm wondering if that's even true.

I glance at the time on my phone instead of answering her. “I've got to get going. I've got someone coming over this afternoon.”

“Pearl, please tell me that you're not getting under somebody to get over him. You've never been that kind of woman. Don't let this one asshole who's upset you make you think that because things have gone this way, you have to be putting yourself out there to even keep a man interested. You know you don't. You're stunning and intelligent and you're enough on your own.”

“I appreciate the pep talk, but it's Uncle Nicolo. He wants to come over and check on me and talk about my funds for the future. And then there are some other matters we have to settle. Don't worry about me, I'm not going to go out and do something stupid.”

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