Page 32 of Unbreakable Vow

Krista stares at me for a long moment then sighs. “If he hurts you, I’ll kill him.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “Krista, it’s a business transaction. No one is going to get hurt.”

“Mr. Petrov.”Mrs. Yugov interrupts the quiet of my office. “The lawyer is here.”

I look up from the letter in my hands. It’s an old letter of my mother’s that she kept locked away in a trunk.

The same afternoon she told her parents of her decision to marry my father, they’d disowned her. Thrown her out of the house with only a single trunk to fill with all of her belongings.

What was once filled with some clothing, toiletries, and framed memories now houses the memories she wanted to keep locked up. The angry letters her mother sent to her after her marriage. The copies of the legal documents showing she’d been cut off from the family estates and fortunes. It wasn’t enough they’d actually done it, but they needed to send the proof to her.

I refold the letter. When my grandfather became ill, my grandmother wrote to inform my mother. She’d suggested my mother come home, to beg her father’s forgiveness before it was too late. But she requested she leave her children behind.

My mother would never do such a thing. My grandfather died without her pleas for a forgiveness she didn’t need.

“Send him in.” I tuck the letter back into the fragile, yellowing envelope.

“I know it’s not my place, but…” Mrs. Yugov steps further into the room. “Wouldn’t Cora prefer a church for her wedding? Or maybe a ceremony in the park? Something brighter than your office?”

I sweep my eyes up to my housekeeper. She’s been with me for years, when I was a young man making stupid mistakes. When I still believed a marriage like my parents’ would be possible for me.

“She’s fine with things the way they are.” I drop the envelope into my top drawer beside the other letter I keep locked away and move to my feet. “And you’re right. It’s not your place.”

She pinches her lips together, like she’d like to give me a good talking to, but she thinks better of it.

“Someone needs to look out for the girl,” she says, but turns on her heel.

“She’ll be my wife, so that’s my job.” My response is given to an empty room. Mrs. Yugov enjoys having the last word.

“Mr. Petrov.” Anthony Certucci, my attorney, sweeps into my office, swinging his briefcase up to rest on the desk. I despise lawyers almost as much as I do the government, but at least Anthony gets straight to the point and doesn’t linger.

“You’ve drawn up the prenuptial agreement I asked for?”

“I did.” He nods, pulling out paperwork. “But I have to caution you.”

“Caution me?” I eye the papers. “Isn’t your job to protect me in that document?”

“I have.” He stands straight, like I’ve just insulted him. I couldn’t give a shit about his feelings. I want this handled and I want it completed quickly.

“Then what is there to caution me about?”

“You did read the paperwork I sent you regarding your grandmother’s will?”

“That’s why we’re here today. The judge will be here shortly. Let’s get this over with.”

He eyes me carefully. “Mr. Petrov, if you divorce within the first year, you lose the inheritance.”

“What?” I’d read the documents several times. How could I have missed that?

“Yes. One year. No less,” he explains, laying the paperwork out in front of me. “You’ll take ownership of the controlling stocks in Kustov Metals after your marriage is filed with the state, but at the end of one year, if you are not still married, the stocks will be put up for sale. You can’t purchase them back.”

It’s not the prenup, it’s the will. He points at a paragraph that I don’t remember reading. It’s small and tucked between paragraphs regarding the monies and estates left to my cousin. A piddly amount and the estates in Russia that I have no interest in anyway.

“No divorce.” I read it again carefully. He’s right. “So, nothing is actually inherited until the year is over?”

“Like I mentioned, you’ll be head of the company, you’ll earn just as your grandmother did. But as for the monies and such, that will be in a trust until one year from the date of your grandmother’s death.”

“Will I be able to sell any part of the company during that year?” How can I destroy it, if it’s not in my grasp to crush?

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