Page 12 of Vengeful Vows

I stumble out of the car less gracefully than I entered it. It doesn’t go unnoticed. We’re not surrounded by the glitz and glamor of the Chrysler building, but the people milling on the sidewalk know Ark’s ride and the man inside are far too flashy for both this side of Myasnikov and me.

4

ARKADIY

Rafael peers at me when I throw down the umpteenth manila folder this morning so I can drag my hand through my hair. The internal clock I’m striving to ignore ticks louder with each passing second, reminding me of what is meant to be the true purpose of my visit to Myasnikov.

I am supposed to be finding a wife, not mulling over the possible shady childhood of a woman I hardly know.

I’ve barely slept a wink in the past three nights. The last time my sleep was this lacking was the weekend before I took a placement in the upper house. Fyodor wanted me to “scratch the itch” rigorously enough to keep my hookups out of the tabloids for six months.

I wasn’t featured in almost four weeks.

That was a record within itself. Fyodor, however, wasn’t impressed.

Sex is how I blow off steam, but that crutch won’t cut it this time around, so I haven’t tried. Interacting with women on paper is tedious, and I am too close to the end of my rope to pretend it isn’t.

It isn’t solely unearthing the cause of Mara’s stutter keeping me awake, but also my inability to defuse the ruse Rafael orchestrated directly in front of me.

I took his bait lock, stock, and barrel, and he’s been acting like a smug prick ever since.

Even though I knew it was a ruse, the way Rafael looked at Mara still affects me now, three days later. He played his well-versed lion-stalking-his-prey ploy, which he’s perfected over the past two decades, but Friday night was the first time I wanted to play the role of the hunter desperate to even the playing field.

To do that, I’ll have to ignore the ghosts of my past as if their exhumation won’t terminate my campaign for the top job in an instant.

I don’t know if that is something I can do. A part of me, a side I’ve not seen in an extremely long time, wants to cocoon Mara from additional harm before beating the fuck out of the person responsible for the fear in her eyes, but that urge comes with a heap of limitations—limitations I’m not sure even Mara would want me to ignore.

Her flinch when I tried to return a stray lock to its counterparts…fuck.

It haunts my dreams.

But the gleam in her eyes when she wordlessly begged me to kiss her…fuck.

I’d never felt more torn.

I’m still undecided now.

While muttering my frustration at how quickly Mara dug up my deeply buried nurturing side, I turn to face a window spanning one side of the living room. My impending decision weighs heavily on my shoulders, but I can’t rush it. I’ll be stuck with the woman I select for years, possibly decades, so I need to choose wisely.

My fists clench, turning white, when Rafael’s amused gaze locks with mine in the window’s reflection, and he has the hide to chuckle at my riled expression.

When my growl reaches his ears, he plasters a ruthless businessman persona on his face before flicking through the applications I’ve scarcely perused, too bored with Fyodor’s top picks to pay them any proper attention.

A wolf whistle ripples through Rafael’s lips when he reaches the glossy Polaroids attached to the first dossier. “Your options could be worse, Ark. This woman is…” His teeth gnawing at his palm completes his reply.

My huff beads the window with condensation when I move closer. The sun is high, casting a warm glow over the foot traffic below. I scan the faces, searching for something, or rather, someone to fixate my attention on before I end my campaign for the presidency before it has truly begun.

It was a close call Friday night, one I’m not sure I would have won if Mara hadn’t fled the way she did.

As I stand, torn between the political side of my head and the personal, my eyes are drawn to the side entrance of the building like a magnet. Mara is exiting the building from the service entrance. Her dark locks are cascading down her back in loose waves, and her eyes are fixated on something in her hands.

After stuffing her phone into the hidden pocket in her skirt, she weaves through the clog of pedestrians hogging the sidewalk. Even hurried, her strides are graceful and fluid. They have me mesmerized in under a minute.

Something about Mara entrances me—something I can’t quite put into words. It could be that a survivor knows a survivor. However, it feels like more than that.

An unexpected frown plays at my lips when I realize how at ease she seems surrounded by strangers varying in weight and height. Does that mean I was the cause of the shakes thathampered her tiny frame so ruefully she stuttered? I yelled at her at the commencement of our first meeting, but my fury wasn’t directed at her. I was angry at myself that I had allowed someone to sneak up on me unawares and while naked.

The last time I made that mistake, it cost me dearly.

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