Page 49 of Deceitful Vows

I inherited many traits from my father the past thirty years. This is the only one I’ve ever replicated from before my mother disappeared. Despite the many stepmothers I endured during my youth, my father only ever used this move on my mother. It is the perfect skit to have those around me believing I am in love because my father has never loved anyone but himself. My mother, however, let him get away with murder the instant their noses brushed.

The journalists eat up my rare public display of affection. They snap a hundred pictures, and the heat of their shouted words as they ask a range of questions about our “supposed” upcoming nuptials doubles the hue spreading across Arabella’s cheeks.

I’m barely touching her, so her mother’s claim of her purity must be accurate.

Only yesterday, the knowledge would have sparked a fierce interest in me.

Today, my cock doesn’t feel the slightest flutter.

It is as uninspired as the names listed on the files Dr. Hemway delivered to my hotel this morning, and as insipid as my mood becomes when Petr, the man assigned to trace Zoya’s every step, announces into my earpiece that he’s lost visual of his target.

Arabella squeaks when my grip on her waist turns deadly. I wring it like I want to Petr’s neck while my glare at the security camera in the corner of the new apartment block has him coughing up an excuse that makes me instantly hard despite my fury.

“She kneed me in the balls before popping her fist into my mouth.” His next set of words comes out with a stutter of a man on the verge of peeing his pants. “I-I didn’t retaliate. Bu-but she kneed me hard enough that by the time I caught my breath, she was long gone.”

“Kon—”

I don’t even get out his entire name before Konstantine announces he is tracking Zoya’s movements from when she left the hotel and that he will have an update on her location within minutes. “Where do you want me to send the coordinates?”

With my arm wrapped around the waist of my alleged fiancée, my reply shouldn’t be immediate. But it is. “Send them directly to me.”

I don’t wait for Konstantine to respond before I move away from the media endeavoring to work out the cause of the groove between my brows. He would follow my orders even if it instigated the massacre of an entire family. He’s good like that.

Unfortunately, not all members of my team are as observant of the rules. My return to the foyer of Mikhail’s building casts numerous shadows on the pristine marble floors.

I haven’t even conjured up an excuse to leave, yet Dina is already bitching in my ear about how it’ll look bad if I leave now. “Your father?—”

“Knows when to shut his mouth,” I snap out, annoyed I’m having my authority questioned by someone who should only ever be seen in the background of every frame. “I have an urgent matter I need to take care of.”

“Okay. That’s fine,” Arabella murmurs at the same time Dina asks, “What kind of matter?”

Again, her tone better take a back seat before I place her behind the scenes permanently.

She strives to wipe the fear from her eyes. It is still prominent when she leans in and whispers, “I’m only asking, Kazimir, because Arabella is in a prime ovulation window.” I am lost, and for once, I’m glad. “It is the perfect time for conception.”

Suspicion echoes in my tone. “As you stated this morning when you used that as your excuse to have her turkey basted with my sperm. You said it was prime breeding time and that you didn’t want to miss the opportunity of fulfilling the sole term of my contract at the earliest possible convenience.”

My wording choice could be better. I just don’t have the time or the patience to flick through a dictionary for a better definition of the jargon she hit me with this morning when she used the procedure Arabella undertook last night as a reason to deny my request for an annulment.

“That is correct,” Dina replies, her throat bobbing. “But the attending physician announced that the probability of conception would be higher if…itwas administered again.”

“It?”

My cock shrivels when she thrusts her hand at my crotch. Its withered response isn’t solely because it is the first time it’s had a wrinkly hand within an inch of it. It is also compliments to what she says next. “He encourages an old-fashioned approach to conception.” She grabs my arm and pulls me deeper into the curtains flanking the floor-to-ceiling windows of the foyer. “Arabella isexceptionallytrained inallaspects of matrimony. She is ripe and ready to please.”

Ripe?

She’s sporting off her daughter’s assets as if she is selling me a piece of steak.

After what I’ve seen in my industry, I shouldn’t be surprised. Women are bartered for as often as cocaine is traded. Their value rarely surpasses the white bricks of snow I’d hand over for free if forced to pick between banking its profits or burying my head between Zoya’s legs again.

I willalwayspick the latter.

“You just need to give her a chance to show you she will far succeed your greatest expectations.”

Before I can remind Dina of the exact wording of my contract with her daughter, Konstantine announces he has unearthed Zoya’s location. “She just entered Stoltz and Hemway’s office complex. She isn’t alone.” My back molars crunch when he says, “Mikhail is shadowing closely behind her. Want me to send someone in?”

“No,” I reply, aware nothing is done right unless you do it yourself. “I will handle this.”

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