Page 31 of The Mafia's Fake Wife

For several moments, we remain locked together, our breathing ragged. I support her weight easily, my face still hidden in the curve of her neck. The scent of her skin fills my senses.

Slowly, I lower her to the ground, letting her body slide against mine. Her legs tremble slightly as they take her weight. I step back just enough to look at her, appreciating her flushed cheeks,swollen lips, and the marks forming on her neck and collarbone from my lips and teeth.

Mine, declares something primitive inside me. The thought should terrify me. Instead, it feels right.

Elena cups my cheek. The tenderness of the gesture catches me off guard. No one touches me this way, with affection rather than fear or desire.

“You were really worried about me,” she says softly.

I turn away, uncomfortable with my transparency. “You’re my responsibility.”

“Is that all?” Her question is gentle, probing.

I meet her gaze again. “What do you want me to say, Elena?”

“The truth would be nice.”

The truth. Such a simple request, yet so impossible to fulfill. The truth is I’ve spent my entire life avoiding attachments, but especially after Nikolai’s betrayal. The truth is, I’ve watched everyone I ever cared about either betray me or die, except for Anton. The truth is, Elena Clarke is becoming something dangerous to me, a weakness I can’t afford. “The truth is, you’re my wife,” I say finally. “For now.”

Disappointment flickers across her face, quickly masked. “For now.” She bends to retrieve her clothes, her movements graceful despite her nakedness. “I should shower,” she says, not looking at me.

I nod, tucking my cock back into my pants and fastening my belt. “I need a shower too, and then I have work to finish. I’ll use the one in the home gym.”

She pauses at the hallway entrance, glancing back at me. For a moment, I think she might say something more or push for the truth she knows I’m withholding. Instead, she simply nods and disappears toward the bathroom.

I listen to the sound of the shower starting, imagining the water cascading over her body, washing away the evidence of our encounter. My body stirs again at the thought, but I force myself to move toward the lower level and the home gym instead.

Instead of jumping in the shower, I first strip off everything and take a long, hard run on the treadmill. I’m trying to clear my thoughts, but my mind keeps replaying the past hour on a loop—the fear when Valeriya called, the relief when I found Elena safe, and the desperate need to claim her, to reassure myself she was real and whole and mine. I’ve never lost control like that before. Sex has always been a calculated act for me. Pleasurable, certainly, but never desperate. Never revealing.

I can’t stop thinking about the woman in my shower, about the way she looked at me with such clarity, seeing past my carefully constructed facade to the truth I refuse to acknowledge. The truth is that Elena Clarke is becoming more than an arrangement to me. I’m starting to care, and in my world, caring is the most dangerous thing of all.

9

Elena

I’m stunned as I push through the double doors of the medical building. My mind is still swimming with lecture notes on trauma procedures when I spot him.

Casey.

I never expected to see Casey again after everything he’d done. Not after he’d stolen my inheritance, my future, and my trust.

He stands near the bottom of the steps, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the autumn wind that whips across the medical campus. He looks different, thinner and more haggard, like something’s been eating away at him from the inside. His sandy blond hair is longer than he used to keep it, unwashed and hanging in his eyes, obscuring the hazel irises that once convinced me he was honest.

The confident swagger I once found charming is gone, replaced by nervous energy as he shifts his weight from foot to foot. His worn sneakers scuff against the concrete. He hasn’t spotted meyet, and for a moment, I consider turning around and slipping back through those double doors before he sees me.

Then he glances up, and our gazes lock. He freezes mid-fidget. Even from twenty feet away, I can see his throat bob as he swallows.

I falter. For a split second, I consider turning around and taking the coward’s way out. Instead, I square my shoulders and continue down the steps.

“Elena.”

My name on his lips sends a jolt of anger through me. How dare he show up here? After weeks of silence, after emptying our joint account, of which the lion’s share was mine, and disappearing without a trace? “What are you doing here?” I keep my voice steady, refusing to show how much his presence rattles me.

He takes a step closer, and I notice the dark circles under his eyes, and the way his clothes hang loosely on his frame. “I needed to see you.”

“You needed to see me,” I repeat the words angrily, each syllable sharper than the last. My throat constricts as months of betrayal surge forward. “Funny how that need didn’t exist when you were stealing my money and disappearing in the middle of the night.”

Casey winces, his shoulders curling inward. A thin sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead despite the cool evening air. “Elena, I screwed up.” His voice drops to contrite and pleading, that familiar tone he used whenever he wanted something. “What I did was unforgivable.”

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