Page 201 of Cashmere Cruelty

But what I’m wholly unprepared for is the answer that actually comes my way.

“It’s none of your business.”

I look up. Matvey’s eyes are finally on me, but they have never felt so cold. His words, too—words that I’ve begged for in my mind for the whole week. The silence is broken now, but at what cost?

“Matvey…” I try again, gripping my napkin tight. “Just tell me. I promise, I can handle it. I just need to know?—”

“You don’t need to know anything.”

“That’s not fair,” I rasp around the lump in my throat.

I watch Matvey’s fist clench and unclench on the table. Like it does when he’s about to lose his patience. “Drop it, April.”

I shake my head. “No. You owe me this much. You owe me?—”

“I owe younothing!”

The harshness of those words makes me jump. For a second, I’m frozen: I can’t blink, I can’t speak, I can’t breathe.

Matvey’s chair screeches. Through a veil of tears, I watch him stand. “I owe you nothing,” he repeats, quieter. “And you don’t owe me anything, either. So do what you want.”

“What… I want?” I stammer.

He gives me a curt nod. “After the birth, I’ll arrange for you to be moved to another apartment. It’ll be yours in every way that matters. You’ll have round-the-clock security and a bank account for your needs.”

“And you think that’s what I want?” I ask with a trembling voice. “A bigger cage?”

“I will provide for you,” he goes on as if he hasn’t heard me. “And for our child. You’ll be free to have your friends over. If you want June to move back in, I won’t stand in your way. And if you…”

“And if I want somebody else to move in, you won’t stand in my way, either?”

I can’t get through the whole sentence without my voice wobbling. A few days ago, it would have been unthinkable: Matvey Groza, giving me up to someone else?

But now…

Now, what else could he have meant?

“I want you and no one else. Not even if it’s fake.”

I still want to believe those words. I want it with all my heart.

But then again, I also wanted to believe in“I love you.”

And look how that turned out.

“No.”

I blink. “‘No?’”

For the first time since this whole affair started, I allow myself to hope.

“You can’t have someone else,” he growls. “Not now, not ever. You are mine.”

Then kiss me, I beg.Kiss me now and call me yours. Call off the wedding, take me away, make me forget this ever happened.

Kiss me and give me my happily ever after.

“And if I can’t have you, then no one can.”

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