Page 149 of Deceitful Vows

A peculiar smell plumes into my nostrils when I enter my room. It isn’t unappealing. More unexpected. It smells feminine and sweet. An odd fragrance considering I’ve never welcomed a woman into my home, much less my bed.

“It-it’s me,” stammers a voice with a bird-like tweet. “Don’t shoot.”

My hand stops reaching for my gun when Arabella steps forward, moving out of the shadows the light outside my room causes. She’s dressed in a mesh negligee with an in-built bra and a high split in the thigh. It clings to her skin so perfectly that it doesn’t take a genius to realize she is without panties. I can see the lines of her bare mound and the dots of perfume she sprayed on her chest. That’s how sheer her nightwear is.

“What are you doing here, Arabella?” This is the first time I’ve seen her since she left for her bachelorette party. I’m not the best company in general, but I’ve been a bear with a sore head for the past several days.

“Dr. Fairmont recommends a hands-on approach after insemination.”

When she steps closer, I realize the perfume spray on her neck isn’t the sole sign of wetness on her skin. Her pussy lips are glistening. I don’t know if it is because she has a thing for arrogant jerks or if IVF causes excess residue.

In all honesty, I don’t care.

“He said it is scientifically proven that the chances of conception are greater if the recipient’s womb is”—her eyes flick up for the quickest second before returning to me—“stimulatedclose to the insemination time.”

Her negligee is already leaving nothing to the imagination, but the visual becomes more risqué when she slides down one of the straps, sending the scant material floating to the floor.

She is as naked as the day she was born, but instead of kicking her out as per the better judgment of my head, I order her into the kneeling position the submissive held in Mikhail’s apartment the day I met Zoya before I spin around to lock my bedroom door.

59

ZOYA

“I’m so sorry,” I apologize when the loud shrill of my phone startles the lady in front of me.

We’re in an elevator, and I’m riding her ass so closely that she’ll need a proctologist to get me out. It isn’t that I’m a fan of invading people’s privacy bubbles. I just needed a way to sneak into Mikhail’s apartment without him knowing about my arrival. I don’t want to be removed from the premises like I was when I visited Andrik’s family’s country estate three days ago with the hope Mikhail was there.

This beautiful woman is as deliciously chunky as she is tall. I wasn’t spotted by the doorman, much less the security guard monitoring the new state-of-the-art surveillance camera system installed throughout Mikhail’s building.

My inquiries have been dodged left, right, and center since Aleena’s bachelorette party. Andrik and Aleena have an excuse for their silence. They’re being watched as much as Nikita. But what is Mikhail’s reasoning? Yes, I used him to rile Andrik, but he signed up for that willingly, so he has no reason to ignore my calls.

He hasn’t returned a single call or text message, and I’ve reached out to him over a dozen times in the past two weeks.

When Nikita’s grinning face flashes up on my phone again a second after I sent her last call to voicemail, I slide my finger across the screen and push my phone close to my ear.

“Hey, is everything okay?”

I told her days ago that I was going to help Aleena with last-minute wedding plans because I didn’t want to look like a loser who can’t maintain a single friendship beyond ours. She might dump me if she learns how crappy of a friend I am.

My endeavors to make contact with Mikhail weren’t as stellar as my attempt to reach Vlad, but cut me some slack. Vlad didn’t look like I had vomited in his mouth after we kissed. Mikhail appeared disgusted after our lip lock.

“Hey. Yeah. Everything is fine.” My bullshit radar sounds an alarm, but before I can call Nikita out on it, she continues. “I was just wondering if you could do me a favor. You’re at home, right?”

“Ah…” I scan the internal walls of the elevator before grimacing. “I can be, if it’s urgent.” When she sighs, I blow my cover by straightening my spine. “Is it urgent?”

“Kind of.” After another deep sigh, she tells me how she made a promise to pay the medical expenses of a child the hospital was refusing to treat since she didn’t have insurance, and that she was hoping the money in her box would be enough to cover the expenses.

This is why I love her. She would give you the clothes off her back if you asked. But I’m lost as to why she needs the equivalent of her life savings to pay the bill. Maksim is giving her the world. She never has to penny-pinch again.

“Why are you using the funds you set aside? Maksim gave you a limitless credit card and permission to use it for whatever your heart desires. Use that.”

“I can’t.”

“You can, and you don’t have much choice. You have two, three nights’ admission max saved.”

I’m reminded how daft women become when we’re trapped in a love haze when she says, “And?”

“And…” I leave her on hold for a couple of seconds to ensure her head doesn’t get too big for her boots. It’s what best friends do. “During your two-minute rundown on what happened, you said the clerk announced the Petrovitches were several thousand in debt. I don’t think you have that much in your box, Keet. Because if you did, you would have purchased your grandfather’s breathing machine with it months ago.”

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