Page 63 of Savage Surrender

“Thanks.” I closed and locked the door after her, bewildered by her showing up. Eva and I talked during a lab—once—when we were both at college, but that was the extent of our limited association. As peer Mafia princesses, we’d always known of each other, but we were far from close.

“That’s my line to you,” she quipped, taking containers of soups and salads out of the bag she’d brought. I helped her, lining things up and wondering what Vik would like first. “Thank you, Irina.” Eva looked at me sincerely. “For helping me escape that day.”

I nodded.

“That took a lot of guts. Only a brave and intelligent woman would defy the orders of her father like that.”

“Thanks.”

She gave me a dry look. “Okay. That’s three times now. You can’t be that much of a ditz if Viktor wants you.”

I furrowed my brow, sitting since she did. Following others’ lead wasn’t my preference, but this was so weird that I was taking it all as it came. “So his type is ditzy women?”

She snorted a laugh. “No. Vik’s never had a type, but he can’t stand idiots in general.” She pointed a carrot stick at me. “So if he’s so smitten over you that he’s got Lev starting a mission to retrieve Igor Petrov’s son, you can’t be an idiot.”

“I feel like an idiot about him,” I admitted, feeling free to do something like girl talk with her.

“Why, because he was undercover and wasn’t upfront that he was a Baranov?”

That, and how quickly and thoroughly I’d fallen for him. Love made me vulnerable.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how that worked, anyway.” I frowned at my bowl of soup. “My guards never reacted to his being my professor.”

“They wouldn’t have.” Eva shrugged. “Viktor’s always been behind the scenes, managing the whorehouses for the family. He used to be a more active soldier when he was younger, but my uncle thought he had good management skills and put him in supervision in an area where weaker men often got distracted.”

I mulled over that for a moment, unsure about how to accept that.

“And this awkward quiet you’re giving me now means…?”

I searched for the right words. “Well, I was a virgin when I met him, and I can imagine all that he’s seen and done and…”

She smiled. “He supervised those places, Irina, not frequented them. I doubt you have worries there. If a man is willing to risk war for a woman, that’s saying something.” She resumed eating her lunch. “Viktor was also out of the country for a while, going off on a wild goose chase, so no one around here would’ve seen him out and about. Viktor just made the most sense to go undercover, and it worked well, since the Petrov and Ilyin guards didn’t react to his being on campus.”

“Do you miss it?” I asked her. “Going to school?”

She shrugged but ended that with a shake of her head. “No. I did, but Lev and I will get married this summer. And I hope we can start a family as soon as possible.”

“Lucky you.”

She raised her brows at me, and I regretted how snarky I sounded.

“Maybe you’ll beat us there.”

“Yeah, right.”

She set her fork down. “Do you doubt how serious Viktor is about you?”

“No. But I doubt your uncle will actually approve of any Baranov taking Maxim from my father.”

She opened and closed her mouth. “My uncle is a wise, careful, and considerate man.”

“For those in his family,” I corrected.

“True. And that includes Viktor. If Viktor insists on having you as his woman, then my uncle will need to appreciate that.”

“A marriage with an enemy?”

Her responding smile was slow but sure. “I think he might have opened his mind about how to perceive you when you helped me escape. Besides, it can happen. Maria, Oleg’s wife, was a former rival’s daughter. He only married her to thwart a bigger alliance. And they’re hardly together. She officially moved in with a retired soldier months ago.” She rolled her eyes. “She and Oleg are legally married but can’t stand each other, so they live apart.”

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