Page 58 of Endless Obsession

“Don’t be,” Sarah says firmly. “I totally get it. I’d feel the same way if Colin showed up with a new woman on his arm. Just be safe getting home, okay? Here, I’ll call you a ride.”

I start to protest, but she’s already tapping away on her phone. I try not to look in the direction of the dance floor, but my gaze keeps drifting that way anyway, to where Ivan and the woman in the rose-gold dress are swaying back and forth. She’s looking at him intently, now, and while she doesn’t look entirely happy, it does look like she’s finally paying attention to him.

A wave of exhaustion sweeps over me. I know it’s not fair for me to be jealous, but I can’t help it, and trying to fight the irrational feeling is making me tired. I get up and give Sarah a hug, grabbing my clutch and walking briskly towards the entrance, forcing myself not to look in their direction again.

I’ll talk to Ivan about it later, when my head is clearer. Right now, I just want to be home, out of this dress, and in a hot bath.

That’s exactly what I do as soon as I walk into my apartment. I strip out of the dress, hanging it up carefully in front of my closet with every intention to take it somewhere to have the rip mended—and possibly send Ivan the invoice—and draw myself a hot bath with rose-scented bath oil. I sink into the silky hot water, closing my eyes as I reach for the glass of wine I poured myself, and try not to think about how completely upside-down this entire evening went.

My thoughts drift back to the kinky website, and Venom. I could log on tonight, and see if he’s there. But a sharp pang of guilt stops me from taking that line of thinking any further.

I already felt a little guilty for talking to two men at the same time. It’s not the kind of thing I’ve ever done before all of this. But after my encounter with Ivan tonight, I feel even more guilty.

If I was upset that he was at the gala with another woman, it feels wrong to get online and chat with another man tonight, to say and do the things that I did last time. Just the thought of him kissing that other woman the way he kissed me tonight sends a burn of jealousy through me—and I can’t help but think that means that, at least for tonight, I shouldn’t try to see if I can talk to Venom.

This is exactly why I told Ivan that I didn’t want anything serious. But it seems like my heart—and my conscience—is determined to get in the way. This is my time to be free, to explore things. To find out what I’ve been missing for so long. I can’t do that and demand that Ivan wait around for me until I’m ready to make things serious.

Except—that seemed like it was exactly what he was going to do. Like he was promising me, at dinner, that he was going to wait for me. And as unfair as it is, and even though I didn’t ask him to do that, seeing him with that woman tonight felt like a betrayal.

We’ll talk about it later, I tell myself. I’ll stay off of that site, and I’ll wait until tomorrow, when Ivan and I can talk about it outside of the heated environment that we found ourselves in tonight.

I feel sure that we’ll figure it out then, and it will all be fine.

I just need to talk to him.

18

IVAN

The last thing I wanted was to leave Charlotte there on the stairs after that kiss.

What I actually wanted was to scoop her up in my arms, carry her into the nearest empty room, and slide under that dress so I could reacquaint myself with what she tastes like. Or better yet, just fuck her up against the wall.

From the way she was squirming against me, I wonder if she would have told me no.

I’m still half-hard by the time Sabrina and I get back to our table, my mind still in that stairwell. The sound of her breathy moan in my ear, the scent of her, the way she arched against me, the sweetness of her mouth—all of it is driving me crazy. I don’t want to think about anything other than her right now.

Unfortunately, I have to. Because what I also need to do is get Sabrina Petrov to safety.

I have a plan, one that I put together to the best of my ability over the last few days. It’s what I’ve been entirely focused on, outside of my other responsibilities to the Bratva—and it’s why I didn’t find the time to text Charlotte and warn her not only that I’d be at the gala, but that I’d be there with a ‘date.’

That, and the fact that I didn’t want to try to explain it over text. But I didn’t have a chance to try to have lunch with her again. I was too busy trying to figure out how I’m going to pull this off tonight and still have all my body parts attached at the end of it.

“She seems nice.” Sabrina’s voice is so bored that I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not. She seems more than a little displeased to be here tonight, and I don’t know why. I don’t think my company is that hard to tolerate, but maybe I was wrong. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“No,” I say shortly, my gaze flicking over the tables around the room. I didn’t see Charlotte earlier, and I look for her now, trying to see where she’s sitting. I finally spy her near the front of the room, sitting next to a beautiful blonde in a blue silk dress who is leaning close, murmuring something to her with a concerned look on her face. I can only assume that must be Sarah, the friend that Charlotte mentioned.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Sabrina asks, tapping her spoon against the crème brûlée in front of her, and I suck in a breath, reminding myself to be patient. I need to get her to the men who are going to guarantee her safety, and to do that, I’m going to have to let her in on the plan.

This is the hardest part. There’s no easy way to tell someone that they’re about to be a victim of human trafficking, and that if they don’t listen to you, the one springing the words human trafficking on them, that that’s exactly what is going to happen.

“I don’t,” I tell her, trying to soften my tone a bit. The music picks up, and I turn towards her. “Come dance with me,” I suggest, holding out a hand, and Sabrina gives me a suspicious look, but rises gracefully from the table and puts her hand in mine.

A good deal of her coldness is a shield, I know that. She’s a Bratva princess, raised to close off her emotions since she was a child, bred to fulfill her father’s whims and nothing more. Now, she’s about to be used as a pawn for my father’s revenge, and I refuse to allow that to happen. Not on my watch.

I just need her to believe me, and since we don’t know each other very well and our families are enemies, that’s a lot to ask.

I lead her onto the dance floor, hating the fact that if Charlotte looks in this direction, she’ll see me dancing with Sabrina. I don’t care that I have just as much right as she does to be out with someone else, I don’t want to be. And I don’t want her to think that I want to be.

---