Page 85 of Dirty Grovel

“Only if you wanted to.”

“I do want to,” I say. “But I have business to handle.”

“You have your mother to placate, you mean.”

“There’s very little difference between the two.”

She smirks, but then she swallows the smile a second later. “I meant what I said last night.”

“I believed you.”

“Good. Because what happened last night doesn’t mean I’m going to be your plaything, Oleg. I am not yours to use whenever you decide you want me.”

Her fierceness is thrilling. My cock jumps to life at the sight of her parted lips, her flushed face, her heaving chest. She’s got so much righteous dignity churning around inside her and it’s not even eight in the morning.

“Understood.”

She looks at me for a moment longer before she nods. Then we walk up to the bungalow together.

When the path forks, she takes the left branch towards Jesse and Teo’s cottage.

There’s a rather large part of me that wishes I were going with her. Facing my mother on an empty stomach never bodes well.

But right is the only way I can go.

I sneak into the kitchen, hoping to at least get some caffeine into my system before our inevitable conversation.

But I’m too late. Oksana is sitting in the breakfast nook, cradling a fresh mug of coffee and a sour sneer, her eyes following me like a bird of prey.

“Imagine my surprise,” she sniffs, “when I walked into the kitchen this morning to find it cold and empty.”

She’s not wrong. Jesse usually has something on the table by now. It’s not her day off, either, which means her absence is calculated.

“Am I to interpret this as some sort of statement?” she continues, sliding one finger around the rim of her mug.

My mother. The woman could give a master class in intimidation tactics.

Lesson one: It’s in the simple things.

The arched eyebrow.

The pursed lips.

The way she tracks my every movement without so much as blinking.

I pour myself a full mug of coffee, breathing in the heady scent as I join her in the breakfast nook. “What does it matter? You don’t eat anyway.”

“That’s not the point. She is your employee and she has a job to do. Her personal feelings don’t come into it.”

“That’s not how I run my estates.”

Oksana’s eyes flash to mine. “I see. You don’t hire employees; you hire friends. Is that it? It’s the only explanation I can see for why you would throw Jesse’s son a party in this house. It appears that the yachts were used, too?”

I grit my teeth. “We should have hadyoumake the children walk the plank,” I suggest wryly. “Although that might have been a little too on the nose.”

“I’m guessing it was her idea.” Oksana’s eyes veer towards the cottage. Toward Sutton. “Is she there now? Having breakfast with the help?”

“Jesus Christ,” I snap. “You’ve known Jesse since she was a child. Oriana and Jesse were friends. They might have been closer if you hadn’t been such a snobby bitch. Do you really think it’s beneath us to have a relationship with her simply because she works for us?”

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