Page 32 of The Bratva's Sold Bride

I settled into a lounge chair with my laptop, taking stock of my new life as I kept Olivia in my peripheral vision. She was sitting cross-legged in front of a newly dug flower bed, carefully placing seedlings in precision rows.

I was surrounded by the picture of domesticity, which was completely different from what I was used to. Why the hell wasn’t I bored yet?

On the contrary, I was the opposite of bored. I would have spent every minute with Olivia if it weren’t for the fact that I was suddenly busier than ever. Someone in town must have tipped off a small-time organization that I was being free with money and didn’t seem to be leaving the area any time soon, and their leader had contacted me.

At first, it was an annoyance, but the group didn’t seem threatening, and were eager to go into business with me. They had been working to buy up some real estate just on the other side of the village, a rich swathe of acreage that was just begging for that resort I used to think about developing. The owners were eager to sell and the local guys swore we could easily get all the necessary permits with my influence and money. After checkingit all out, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to branch out on my own, and if it meant Olivia and I could stay down here more permanently, I was all for it.

The only fly in the ointment was that it was taking up a lot of the time I’d been spending with Olivia, and as I waved goodbye and rushed off to my next meeting, there was a storm brewing in her eyes.

When I returned much later in the evening, she was definitely in a bad mood, even though she tried to hide it. It was the huff when she sat down for our late dinner that did it.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. We’d been getting along great, and dinners at home were fast becoming my favorite thing, even if my younger brothers would have laughed their asses off to learn it. “Don’t tell me nothing, either. I can see something’s bothering you.”

She set her fork down and took a long moment, as if deciding whether or not to complain. I fixed her with a look, and she sighed. “Fine. It’s because you’ve been paying the gardening crew overtime, and they're almost finished with the project. I barely have anything to do except for some weeding and trimming here and there. When you’re not home, I can’t go hiking because all of your stupid guards are afraid of snakes, and Señora Cruz has no patience for my beginner Spanish.”

I fought a smile at her rush of complaints, meaning to have a word with my so-called fierce warriors about the snakes. There wasn’t much I could do about our crotchety housekeeper, a relative of the old caretakers who were visiting their kids further south. She was the only one who wanted to come out this far, no matter how much I offered to pay.

“So, you’re bored,” I guessed, thinking wryly how I’d just been wondering how I could be so enamored with our new life. And she was withering away.

“I’m just used to being busy,” she said. “Why don’t you let me be your assistant? You know I’d be great at it, and now that you have so much new stuff going on, you can probably use the help.”

She was right about both things. She did an amazing job for Max, and I was up to my eyeballs in administrative crap I would have loved to hand over to someone else. But that wasn’t what I wanted from Olivia.

“You’re not my employee,” I said, more gruffly than I meant to.

The very idea that she might feel beholden to me for getting her away from her father, so that she thought she had to work for me, pissed me off. And then I felt like she punched me in the gut when her shoulders slumped and she looked to the ground.

Where was my fiery bride, fighting like a wildcat for what she wanted? It didn’t mean I’d give it to her, and that made me feel just as low as she looked.

“Hey, if you want something to do, why don’t you explore the town more often?”

“So, you’re not going to be busy tomorrow or the next day or the next?” she asked, looking me in the eye with a flash of annoyance that filled me with relief. My girl was still there.

I groaned, remembering the meetings I had set up to get the sale of the property fast-tracked and all the necessary permits lined up.

“Since neither one of us has seen a free-roaming snake in town, I think one of the guys can handle going in with you. We can meet for lunch, or dinner if my meetings go late.”

A delighted smile broke over her face, her eyes shining as she tossed herself at me and threw her arms around my neck.

“Oh my God, that sounds great,” she breathed against my neck.

I wrapped my arms around her, happy she no longer looked so defeated, but having a strange feeling about how easy it had been to change the course of her mood. Just a little bit too good to be true, but the feel of her warm body squirming against me put any worries out of my mind in a hurry.

Chapter 21 - Olivia

The next morning, I woke up with the sun, excited about the chance to go into town without Dima. I wouldn’t cause a single bit of trouble for whichever one of his guys he assigned to go with me, but I already had a plan to slip out of his sight for a couple minutes. Just a few, and then reappear as he was about to start tearing up the village to make him think he was crazy for suspecting anything was wrong. A couple times of doing that and, he’d let his guard down.

The sun was just peeking over the tops of the trees when I went out back to water the baby flowers I just planted, turning after unwinding the newly installed hose to survey all the changes that had been made in the few short weeks we’d been there.

How did it seem like hardly any time had passed when it should have been dragging? I was in captivity, after all, but had been keeping busy with things I actually enjoyed. Gardening was something I never had much time for, and the peaceful activity was something I was going to miss when I was on the run. There were a lot of things I was going to miss, actually. Any place I was able to get on my own wasn’t going to be nearly as nice as this mansion in the middle of paradise.

I’d be lucky to secure a place with running water, but at least I’d be free.

I had just finished up and was stretched out in one of the lounge chairs when Dima appeared from the house with a cup of steaming hot coffee in one hand and a tall glass of orange juice in the other. Like he always did when he was home in the mornings, he held them both out for me to make my choice.

Since I was already hot from hauling the hose around, I chose the juice, pushing aside what a sweet gesture it was. With a smile, he turned around and went back to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a plate of fresh mango, which had become my favorite. Another thing I was going to miss. The fruit, not the man who delivered it and who looked so handsome, fresh from a shower that I had to look away before I weakened.

It was one thing to get along with him. Even without having any real acting skills, that was simple enough since Dima was just about the most easy-going ruthless killer I’d ever known. If I hadn’t been aware of some of the things he’d done in the Bratva, I might have been able to trick myself into believing I somehow ended up with my normal husband after all.

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