Page 58 of Savage Surrender

“You fucking lied to me! And for what? For what!” If he’d given me the clearance, I would’ve bashed my fists on his chest and pounded out my frustration on him.

“For answers, Irina, because you’re just as much of a liar as me.”

I went still, glowering at him. “I’ve never told you anything that could be a lie.”

“Exactly. You won’t open up.”

I huffed. “Don’t count on me to now! Not after you’ve tricked me into wanting you.” My God, he must have been cracking up in his head every time I said he was just a “normal” man. “Go on,” I goaded. “You’ve got me now. You fucked the enemy’s daughter like it was just another job. What are you waiting for? Deliver me like the useless whore I am so your boss can be happy.”

He stood, holding me and pushing me until my back slammed against the wall. “You are not a useless whore.”

I rolled my eyes, damning the tears burning behind my lids.

“And you’re not the enemy’s daughter.” He slanted closer to me, narrowing his eyes.

“You don’tknowme, Vik.”

He shook his head, somehow calmly in control. “I do. I know more than you think.”

He could think that. I was sure he’d gotten a file on me to go undercover and pursue me. That hurt more—that he hadn’t come for me because he wanted me, but because it was a job.

“Then you know I willnotbe a traitor and tell you a single fucking thing. Oleg Baranov can rot in hell before I let him use me in this goddamn war between our families.”

“You already are a traitor,” he snapped. “You are not loyal to Igor. You can’t be if you helped Eva escape. You made yourself a traitor the second you wanted Eva and Lev to get away last year.”

I swallowed hard. My throat felt so raw and dry. That wasn’t what stopped me from speaking, though. He’d arrested me with that reminder. Ihaddone a traitorous thing in helping them.

“Your actions define who you are, Irina. Not the fact that you were born into the Petrov family,” he insisted firmly, searching my face. “You chose to do a selfless thing for your enemy. That is who you are. You chose to trust me. That is who you are.”

I shook my head. He wouldn’t break me down. I was too familiar with having to look out for myself, for Maxim, to just blindly go along with what others decided. He’d put me in a terribleposition, wedged between being captured and expected to tell all versus appeasing my father so he would spare my brother.

“You are a giving, smart woman, Irina, not a mindless messenger. It doesn’t matter that you were born as Igor’s daughter, that you bear his name. That doesn’t make you who you really are.”

“I will always be a Petrov,” I argued.I will always be my father’s pawn.“Nothing more.”

“Not anymore.” He lowered his gaze. “You could be the mother of a Baranov.”

Oh, fuck.With everything else going on, I hadn’t stopped to consider that we’d had unprotected sex. “That’s why you fucked me? That’s why you seduced me? To weaken me and bring me to Oleg for intel? And to knock me up and have this leverage over me?”

He shook me slightly, his hands tight on my upper arms. “No!”

“You took me to bed and lied to me just so you could use me.”

“No. I slept with you because I lo—” He stopped short. Taking a deep breath, he seemed to seek a pause for clarity before speaking again. “I care for you, Irina. I know those words can’t mean much in the face of my identity. I know you will resist listening to what I am trying to explain right now, but I care for you. When I told you that I would fight for us, for that future with you that seems so out of reach and impossible, I meant it. I mean it. Iwillfight for you.”

But it won’t be enough. It never will.

“I will fight forus.”

I shook my head. “There is nous.”

“There can be.”

I had gotten fanciful wishing that he could remove my father’s influence and I could stay with him for good. At the time, I saw him as just an average man. A professor who was illegally so sexy as an academic professional. Just one person who couldn’t handle the heat of the Petrov organization seeking retaliation on him.

Now, though…

He’s a Baranov. He’s my father’s enemy.

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