Page 48 of Caught By the Bratva Beast

“What are you doing here?”

Chapter 17 - Maxim

Pearl’s eyebrows raise in surprise as she looks at me. “I was looking for you. I figured we should probably talk after the argument.”

“You found me.” I cross my arms, glancing at her hand on the door handle. “I didn't think you were the kind who's going to want to talk after a fight. I thought there’d be the silent treatment. Wait till I buy you something nice.”

“I've made enough money to buy myself something nice if I want it. This marriage isn’t going to work if we're not going to communicate with each other.”

The muscle in my jaw ticks as I look at her, wondering if she realizes the irony of what she's saying right now. Pearl is standing here talking about communication when she doesn’t even tell me her previous name.

I didn't think there was going to be anything more infuriating in my life than dealing with her. And yet the silent treatment that we were giving each other was worse.

Pearl lets go of the handle leaning against the wall, crossing her arms. “Unless you don't want to talk. We don't have to talk right now. We could spend the rest of our married lives avoiding each other and maybe we’d start to think that that would be a good marriage.”

“I have appearances to upkeep; you're not going to avoid me.”

“Good to know that the only reason you want to spend time with me is because of appearances. Here I thought it might have been my sparkling personality.”

“It might have been your sparkling personality, if you were willing to tell me the truth for once in your fucking life.”

“I don't think you can accuse me of never telling you the truth in my life when we've only known each other for a few weeks.”

“And you think that makes a difference?” I scowl, hands curling in fists at my side, knuckles turning white, nails digging into my palms. “Fuck, Pearl. I am your husband; I’m fucking pissed about you hiding things from me. You need to, no, you will have to trust me.”

“You can be pissed all you want. I don't trust people easily and to be quite honest, you've done very little that's worth my trust. “

“Sure, surviving a forest fire with you is worth nothing. Got it.”

“I don't see why you need to make this so difficult.”

I see red as I look at her. For a second I consider storming out and not coming home again. She can know what it's like to live alone. Hell, I could give the order to have her trapped in this house for the rest of her miserable fucking life.

Then I will never find out what she's keeping from me.

“We need to set the terms for a marriage.” I grit my teeth together, nodding to the office door. “We can go in there and talk.”

Pearl opens the door, taking her time to stand in the doorway looking at the wallpaper and the mosaic of tropical flowers hidden deep within the dark lines. “This is kind of opposite to the office I picture you in. I thought there would be more shrunken heads. Maybe some knives and swords hanging on the wall.”

“Sadly, my shrunken head collection is in California.”

When the corner of her mouth twitches, I get the feeling that maybe this is going to work out. Maybe we won't spend the rest of our lives hating each other and I can have a marriage that looks more like that of my cousins.

“I don't want to spend the rest of the day fighting with you,” Pearl says. She goes to the bookshelf, running her fingers along with gilded spines of books. “I think that the two of us need to find a way to talk to each other without it devolving into a fight every single time. You're right about having to set terms.”

“There you go with your contracts again.”

“You were the one who brought it up. Contracts are a good thing. After all, that's marriage, especially one like ours, without love, but a contract.”

“Just sit down before you do my head in, woman.” I gesture to one of the chairs on the other side of my desk and she crosses the room, taking her sweet time. The tight jeans she wears hugs her every curve and I know that peeling them off her would be a good way to end this fight.

I learned a long time ago that you can't fix everything in life with sex.

Pearl sits down, crossing one leg over the other, her arms stretching out on the chair. “Just because we walked down the aisle, said vows, and kissed the other day doesn't mean that I'm going to be able to tell you everything about me and everything else that you might want to know right away. I spent the last seven years of my life living with people who only want to know things about you to abuse you, to use them against you. I don't trust easily.”

“It's very self-aware of you, but I'm your husband. If there's one person in the world you should trust, it's me.”

“I trust you to keep me alive, keep people from coming after me. Hell, I might even trust you to spend time with me. But I don't trust you with parts of me that made me who I am. Not yet.”

---