Page 29 of Claimed By Desire

“I really should leave,” I say and start to rise.

“Sit back down,” he commands.

I drop to my seat, but I clench my jaw. “Don’t talk to me that way.”

“I found you lurking outside of my apartment building and now you’re acting like you stole something.”

“I wasn’t lurking.”

“You were lurking. I’ve seen assassins act more natural than you.”

“They probably have practice at this sort of thing,” I mutter through my teeth.

“What’s going on, Natalya? I assume Lev doesn’t know you’re here.”

“No, he doesn’t know. Nobody knows.”

“Then why did you show up at my apartment the night before you’re getting married?”

I stare at him and he stares back, and for a second, we’re back in Paris again. He’s looking at me like he can’t stop himself from taking me, and I’m practically aching for him to bury the distance between us with his body.

I want that night back. I want that man back. But he’s been gone since we woke up in the morning, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to recreate that magic.

“I need to tell you something.” My hand’s shaking as I reach into my sweatshirt pouch. I have a pregnancy test stashed in there wrapped in toilet paper.

He drinks from his wine. “Then tell me.”

“Can you make me some tea?” I blurt out instead. His eyebrows raise. “Herbal tea. Please. It’ll help calm my nerves.”

He doesn’t move for a long moment. Then he turns and fills an electric kettle. “It’s normal to be nervous before your wedding,” he grunts at me as the water heats up. He finds chamomile in the cabinet and lets it steep. “Even more normal considering you don’t really know your future husband very well.”

“Right, yeah,” I mumble at him, playing with the test, turning it in circles. My knee bounces and I feel sick to my stomach, though this time I’m pretty sure it’s not pregnancy related. Not directly, anyway.

“Although he has practically buried you in presents.” He puts the tea in front of me. “That hasn’t softened you to him? I figured it would.”

Leave it to Alex to find a way to piss me off right now. “Why do you think I’m so shallow?”

“Because when you were sixteen, you cried when your dad bought you an Acura instead of the BMW you wanted.”

My cheeks turn pink with embarrassment. “I wassixteen, and that stupid Acura was falling apart. The bumper was ducted taped on!”

“It was a perfectly good car.”

“The right wheel fell off a year later. I crashed into the median.”

“You survived, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, because I was going like twenty miles an hour!” I grab my tea mug and take a sip. It burns my tongue, which doesn’t help with my frustration. “It’s like you weren’t an insufferable teenager too.”

“That’s because I wasn’t.”

“You were a know it all. Don’t you remember? Always correcting people.”

“That’s not true,” he says, glaring at me.

“Oh my god, ask Lev about it. Even Step used to laugh about it behind your back. You were such a prick.”Especially to me, but I don’t add that.

“And you were stuck up and rude. Remember the flowers your senior prom date brought you? Remember how you threw them in the trash?”

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