Page 22 of Defiant Devotion

SONYA

Ishut the door to a small room and tried to catch my breath. The mad rush from the restaurant next door to this club was nothing but a dizzying blur of panic. But I was alone here. Wheezing and gasping to catch my breath, I waited for my heart to slow. Ever since I realized I had to be pregnant, it was too easy to be winded and lose my breath. After a chase like that?—

Behind me, the door opened again. It hadn’t been shut for more than a few seconds before someone entered.

Shit!

I backed up, cornered, and confused about who was coming in. The tall man who entered wasn’t wearing the black suit the security personnel sported next door. He wasn’t someone pursuing me for trying to tell that Petrov girl to stay away from my sister. So many things didn’t add up. I only knew I needed to hide and wait, to strategize my return and not be impulsive when things remained unknown to me.

But this guy…

He turned after closing the door behind himself.

This guest had to be someone here for the purpose of being entertained by the dancers.

But it washim. Ben. My one-night stand who’d shown me so much pleasure.

My baby daddy.

I narrowed my eyes, still breathing so hard. I couldn’t dare to believe it. I had to be imagining things, projecting my memory of him onto others.

Is it him?

His eyes were the same. I hadn’t forgotten those deep, dark pools that had shone with raw desire that night. They’d sparkled with mischief and daring too.

But it also wasn’t him. His hair wasn’t the same. He had glasses on. The facial hair was different.

Is he wearing a disguise?

Or is this someone else?

I opened and closed my mouth, at a loss for what to say. So stunned to see him again, here like this, when I was in the middle of trying to reclaim some privacy, I couldn’t speak.

“Um…” He lowered his gaze only to drag it back up me slowly, desire lighting up his slow smile. He wasn’t acting like he recognized me, and it made me doubt he was who I thought he could be. Maybe it was just some other guy wholookedlike him. “Excuse me, but are you a dancer here?”

What?How could he think that? I was dressed down in borrowed jeans and a sweater, clearly not appearing ready toshow off my body. I was waiting for him to say something likehey, I remember you. We fucked that one time upstate, right?

“No,” I shot back. I wasn’t a damn stripper. I was a Mafia princess. And if he could task himself with thinking back to three months ago, I was also the stranger who’d given him her V-card.

“Huh.” He stepped forward, still eyeing me like I was his dessert without an iota of recognition.

He’s got no clue who I am.The thought blew my mind.

“I was told I could find a little extra… fun in this room with one of the girls who worked here.”

What? How? Huh?

I’d rushed in here to hide, not looking where I was going. It’d be just my damn luck that I’d sneak into a room meant for whores to get customers needing a “little extra fun”.

“Is that correct?” he asked, taunting me with his lowered voice, so husky and seductive like I remembered.

I started to shake my head, confused, bewildered, but unafraid. As he walked further into the room, trapping me inside, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that he was wrong. That he was mistaken to come into this specific room where I happened to be hiding and try to get a little something from me.

But now that I was near him, close enough to smell his musky, spicy scent and feel the warmth radiating off his hard, hot body, I wanted it too.

Stop.I couldn’t seriously be thinking about this.This is insane. Not now. Not here.I couldn’t begin to understand how our paths were crossing like this, that we were destined to see each otheragain at all. That night, after I’d slept with him and the Ilyin guards found me again, I dismissed “Ben” as a stranger I’d never encounter again.

But I had. We’d somehow ended up in the same place at the right time.

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