Page 46 of Deceitful Vows

I gesture for my co-rider to enter first. It is stupid of me to do because her generously plump frame blocks the cause of the spicy scent lingering in the air until it is too late.

I’m once again trapped in the small confines of an elevator with Andrik.

Mercifully, this time around, we’re not the sole occupants.

Mikhail is here as well.

Although Mikhail looks remorseful, I slant closer to the stranger wearing too much perfume than the man I was certain was more a friend than foe only minutes ago.

Mikhail can’t be trusted—and neither the hell can my libido.

Andrik is an asshole, a reincarnation of the devil, yet the first thing my heart did when it spotted him in the corner of the space far more generous than its less stellar counterpart was stutter.

When a breathy cussword bounces off the brushed steel doors of the elevator, I keep my head front and center but veer my eyes to the side.

Mikhail glares at Andrik like he just kicked him in the shin, before he shifts his focus to the woman forcing enough distance between Andrik and me to ensure I will make it through this elevator ride unscathed. “Is that a Rachel Deprovor brochure?”

I glare at Mikhail with flaring nostrils when his question steals the devotion of my only lifeline. “Why, yes, it is. How observant of you, young man. Are you a fan of Rachel Depovor’s work?”

I wordlessly plea for Mikhail not to leave me defenseless when our co-rider twists to face him.

After the quickest flash of a remorseful smirk, he answers, “Of course. Did you hear she was having a showing at Br…”

I miss the rest of his reply. I can’t hear anything over my pulse raging through my body when a tattooed hand curls around my elbow, and I’m tugged back until my back is splayed flush with Andrik’s erratically panting chest.

The zap of our bodies colliding shudders my thighs and causes an arrogant, big-headed smirk to twist Andrik’s lips. It takes everything I have not to take care of the pretentiousness beaming out of him with my fists. I wouldn’t hesitate if I trusted myself enough not to surrender to the insanity that usually arrives with his punishments.

Since I don’t, I keep my hands balled at my sides.

Andrik sounds as disappointed by my lack of retaliation as I feel. “Did you stop because you’re worried about the repercussions,??????” His breathy, whispered words floating over my ear send goose bumps racing to the surface of my skin. “Or because you know I will respondexactlyhow you’re hoping.”

“I’m not hoping for anything.” After a breather to settle the spike his growl caused my blood pressure, I say, “I wouldn’t want to slap you if you’d stop playing games. You just asked me to leave. You paid me to keep quiet, and now you’re… you’re…” My words trail off, desperate not to portray the lust-fueled idiot I’ve been parading over the past twenty-four hours.

He’s married. There’s no chance of us being anything, so why does my heart believe differently? Why is it making out like he wants me to stay?

“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with you.”

His lips brush the shell of my ear when he asks, “Why?”

The calm, collective way he asks his question skyrockets my anger.

“Because you’re married,” I answer through clenched teeth, stating the obvious.

Mikhail talks louder when my angered whisper almost regains me the focus of our dressed-to-the-nines co-rider. Her neck cranks my way, meaning he has to get up close and personal with an elderly neighbor.

Once he has her utmost devotion resecured with a heap of attention I’m skeptical she’s ever received, Andrik says, “As I stated earlier, it is a contract. A business transaction. It’s not worth more than the piece of paper authenticating it.”

“Then why did you cancel the annulment?” I sound desperate, and I hate myself for it. But you can’t feel the tension brimming between us. It is electrifying. I’ve never experienced such a crazy range of emotions, and not all of them are based on anger.

Andrik’s fingers flattened on the lower half of my stomach drum as frantically as my heart thrashes my ribs when he mutters, “Because I need answers. I deserve them.” The sheer honesty in his voice drops it to barely a whisper. “And Dr. Hemway announced yesterday that you can’t help me get them.”

It takes several floors for the reason of my inclusion in his reply to smack into me. It makes me sick to my stomach.

Mikhail said Andrik’s marriage was so fresh he didn’t know about it when he colluded for us to meet at his penthouse. That can only mean one thing.

Andrik wasn’t at Dr. Hemway’s office yesterday to support his wife through fertility challenges. He was there for the exact reason my legs were forced into stirrups when I became of age—to purchase a breeding-approved wife.

Andrik’s grip on my arm loosens when our elevator’s arrival at the foyer of Mikhail’s building presents the perfect solution for me to be free of him.

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