Page 4 of Dragon Bodyguard
But he had never seen her as an abomination and, to his knowledge, neither had she.
How had she gone from accepting her fate to trying to change it so completely, and herself along with it?
Why was he finding himself mourning the person she once was?
The sense of loss was beginning to grow overwhelming.
He’d thought he’d let her go.
Had he loved her?
He supposed he had, for however briefly he got the chance to.
But this person, resting her gaze on his with a small but condescending smile, this person wasn’t the woman he’d once thought he’d risk everything for, just to spend another hour in her bed.
It seemed that woman was gone.
Chapter 2 - Kristina
Her gaze met Misha’s, wondering what he was thinking. What was he making of her being there? He must be so confused. She wanted to revel in having the upper hand for once, but the truth was that her insides were jelly. She still wasn’t used to being taken on family trips. Especially not official ones, where business matters were the main focus. This was only her third, and she still defaulted to staying quiet and following whatever lead her father took. A part of her felt grateful that he was giving her at least morsels of his attention, a different part felt pathetic for accepting them.
Especially since she had, somewhere along the way, agreed to play the part. She’d relented to her half-sister’s insistence that she needed a makeover. They’d gone to the salon and spent half a day there. Then they’d gone shopping. New wardrobe, new hairstyle, fresh attitude. Dressing the part slowly became second nature and perhaps she began to believe it to the point of losing herself to it. Her engagement with her role seemed to have facilitated Ilya seeing her in a new light, but she couldn’t be sure.
She was never entirely sure of anything.
And looking into Misha’s questioning gaze made her second-guess herself even more.
He looked at her as though she was a stranger.
She pushed the soft mortification at that thought away and reminded herself what he’d done. How he’d ended it with her.
What did she care about how he looked at her?
He broke her heart when he walked away as if she was nothing to him. He hadn’t even had the decency to tell her himself. She’d known it was going to end, she’d known she could never compare to how dedicated he was to the work he wanted to do, but the memory of how he had asked another to tell her still burned. The worry it had brought that he’d ended it because she was shiftless. The nights she’d spent fretting over her fate, wanting to change it, finally finding a way into this new version of herself. One that had to be accepted as she was because she was a Kuznetsova.
Anger flared at how Misha was questioning it, forcing her faux confidence back in place. The mask she’d cultivated over ten years, slipping on effortlessly. She kept a half-smile on her mouth, taking her eyes out of his, looking back up at the ceiling with a soft huff at how things had turned out.
Here he was, head bodyguard. She wondered if he’d gotten everything he’d wanted, all that his status in Dmitri’s household ensured him. Was he happy?
She shouldn’t care.
She knew she shouldn’t.
But his lingering gaze was sending goosebumps over her shoulders. The sensation made her turn her back to him and head over to her father, hoping to distract herself with the portrait of Vasili Kuznetsov. She’d only met Vasili a few times. He typically only visited his brother for ceremonial occasions because, she’d been informed by her step-sister, he preferred to host, not guest. But the portrait was a very good likeness.
“Did you know it was shot through the head?” Ilya asked her, barking a laugh.
“What?” she asked, trying to mask her confusion.
“Oh, yeah. Someone broke in and put a bullet between my brother’s eyes.” Ilya was still smiling broadly, shaking his head. “Imagine that.”
She furrowed her brow at his merriment. Though she knew he’d always had a strained relationship with his brother, she doubted Ilya would be happy about some random intruder managing to kill one of the elder dragons and the ruling head of the Kuznetsov family, no matter how amusing he found the thought of an image of the said ruling head being desecrated.
“An upstart,” Misha said right next to her, making her pull her arms around herself as if she needed to protect herself from his presence. She was growing frustrated that he was affecting her like this, and even more annoyed that she hadn’t, for a second, anticipated he would.
It was meant to be over and done with and here she was feeling like it never ended. Like she saw him yesterday, waking up snug in his bed, watching him get up to have a shower. She’d always liked watching him get out of bed. The lines of him, his back curving into his perky ass, had done things to her and more often than not she’d ended up sharing that shower with him.
Shut. Up.
