Page 16 of Bloody Lace

I groan at the thought, rubbing a hand over my mouth. I’ve been purposefully dodging Nicci’s calls and texts since I left theparty last night, and I know she’s going to be furious. She’s going to be even more furious when she finds out I’m calling off the engagement, but I can’t say anything to her until I break the news to my father, first. He’s going to be furious with me, too.

But Evelyn will be mine. For a little while, at least. I’m not enough of a fool to think that she’ll change her mind while married to me, that she’ll give in to desire or that she’ll fall hopelessly in love—and love isn’t what I’m looking for, anyway. What I wanted was to get to have her for a little while, all while escaping my engagement and giving her back her shop, and then let her go when the time was right and we’d both tired of each other.

Now, her insistence on celibacy—between us, at least—has thrown a wrench into that plan. But the bones of it are still there. I won’t have to marry Nicci, and she’ll get her shop restored. Both my desire to escape my engagement and my guilt over my part in the destruction of Evelyn’s boutique are strong enough to push me forward, no matter what restrictions Evelyn has placed on our relationship.

I finish my drink and pay the tab, taking a small comfort in the fact that I won’t need to deal with either my father or Nicci until the morning. I text my driver, heading back to my penthouse, far from my family’s mansion and the responsibilities that I know I’ll need to face the next day.

But they don’t weigh on me any less in the morning. I wake from restless dreams about Evelyn, certain I can smell her orange spiced perfume, and stumble to the shower, taking longer than necessary under the hot water so that I can relieve the aching pressure in my cock.

I feel like I’ve been hard since the moment she walked into the bar last night. I jerked off thinking about her when I got back to my penthouse, and now I find myself bracing against the shower tiles, groaning as I imagine her full, soft lips wrappedaround me instead of my stroking fingers. The climax, when it hits, is a release—but not the one I want.

Frustration simmers in my veins as I call my driver and head down, thinking over all the ways that I can break this to my father when I arrive home. In the end, as I walk through the marble-tiled entryway and straight to his office in the east wing, I decide that the most direct approach is the best.

My father, Pietr Yashkov, is sitting behind his desk when I walk in. I rap my knuckles once on the outside of the door and then stride inside, ignoring the irritated look he gives me at being interrupted. He looks exhausted, his skin sallow, with deep purple bags under his eyes, and I can’t resist commenting on it.

“You’d be less tired if you let me do more,otets.” I sink down into one of the leather chairs opposite his desk, and his look of irritation deepens.

“You’ll have all the time in the world to do my job once I’m gone. What are you interrupting me for, Dimitri?”

I glance at the papers strewn across his desk—contracts, offers to purchase property, all of the usual. The legitimate ways that we move and hide the money that comes in from our less-than-legal, but far more profitable endeavors.

“I’m not marrying Nicci.”

There it is. Blunt and to the point, enough so that I see it momentarily shocks my father into silence. His brow furrows, his gaze turning thunderous, but I don’t flinch.

“We discussed this months ago, Dimitri. What’s best for the family?—”

“What’s best for the family is that I choose my wife,” I tell him flatly. “If it were some major alliance with one of the other families, I might be more inclined to be swayed. But this is about money. We have money,otets, more than I or my children or my grandchildren will be able to spend, and there will be more.There is always more. I’m not chaining myself to a woman I hate for the rest of my life over money.”

“This is will be an insult to the Armand family?—”

“Nothing was official. Nothing was ever signed. There was an understanding, but it was one I didn’t agree to. Hell, I haven’t even given her a ring.” I run a hand through my hair. “There is no insult. I’m not breaking any promise.”

“You’re disobeying me. Your father. I could disinherit you for this?—”

“And give the inheritance to who?” I narrow my eyes at him. “Alek is gone. Who will you give it to? Some cousin who hasn’t spent their life learning at your knee? The Yashkov name in New York is mine,otets. A woman won’t change that.”

“And there’s someone else?” My father may be paranoid, but he’s still perceptive.

I suck in a deep breath. “There is.”

“You’ve made no promise to this new woman, either?—”

“I have,” I tell him easily. “I gave hermama’s ring. She’s my fiance, and there would be a real insult, if I took it back now.”

It’s a lie, of course. I haven’t given Evelyn my mother’s ring—hadn’t even thought that I intended to, until the words came out of my mouth. But they feel right as I say them, and I know that should unsettle me more than it does.

“What family is she from? Who would you insult?”

That, of course, is a question I can’t answer. Evelyn isn’t from any notable family, and her name wouldn’t ring a bell for my father. The truth is that there would be no insult of the kind that would matter to him, but I’m not about to let him know that.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him flatly. “I’ve made my choice. It’s done. Papers have been signed.” That, too, is a kind of lie—I’ll be bringing Evelyn a contract to sign tomorrow night, but not the kind of betrothal contract my father imagines. His face is taut with rage, but it’s an impotent one, and it makes me wonder whyI didn’t stand up to him like this a long time ago. I might have avoided the whole messy business with Nicci altogether.

I know it’s not wise to make my father angry, especially not these days, when his temper is so razor-thin. He knows what others say about him now, that he’s a wolf who has lost his teeth, a once-feared leader clinging to power past his prime, who should have passed all this on to me years ago. It makes him cling to it more tightly, and I know he might try to find some way to retaliate against me. How, I’m not sure—but I can imagine he would think of something.

I could avoid all of this by simply marrying Nicci as I promised, salving my guilt by paying for Evelyn’s damages anyway, and leaving all thoughts of her behind. But now that I have an opportunity to have her—even if it might never be in the exact way I want—I can’t squander it. There’s always a chance that she’ll give in to me. That she won’t be able to resist the pull between us, either. And with her so close, I can’t just let her walk away.

She wants it to be nothing more than a marriage of convenience, with no trappings of a real marriage, not even while it lasts. And while I’d never force her—I can’t help but think it’s possible that I could win her over. That she might want me too, and simply not want to admit it.

---