Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
My battered ego gets a small moment of reprieve when Yev mumbles, “Because you’re you and he’s him.”
Any good his reply offered is wiped from the face of the earth when I say, “Because he needs a wife.” He wants to interject—badly—it is written on his face, but he is too shocked to speak and fighting like hell not to blow his top. “His grandfather left him and his brothers a ton of money, but they can’t access it until they’re married.”
“Then he should schedule a trip stateside.”
He cusses when I say, “In a marriage approved by his father.” I sink back in my chair and nurse the glass of water Yev served me instead of the nip of vodka I requested. “From what Vasily explained before I left with you after the fight, his father has to believe there is a true connection or the money remains in a trust, and my father’s visa applications will continue to be rejected.”
“You don’t need to marry Vasily to get your father a visa. Falsified documents go for a couple of thousand. I could probably rustle you up a set before dawn.”
I love that he is instantly willing to go to bat for me. That is very much the type of man he was before his brother died, but it isn’t that simple. “You don’t think we already tried that?” I huff out some of the heaviness weighing painfully on my chest. “He gets as close as the border, then is turned around and marched straight back out. Hannah thinks he’s on some kind of watch list.” I’m a bitch for asking this, but I am desperate. “Do you know anyone willing to hack a government agency to check?”
I’m being snarky, but Yev doesn’t see it that way. “Kliment will give it a shot.”
“I can’t ask him to do that.”
“Then I will.” When I glare at him, he balls his hands like the skin under his nose isn’t darkened from a bloody nose. “I’m not letting a douche like Vasily Cabanow use you.”
“How is he using me?” When his eyes drop to my bare legs, I fold my arms over my chest, inching the already immodest hemline of my shirt even higher. “I already told you I’m not sleeping with him.”
“You don’t have to fuck to get your rocks off.”
My disgust is heard in my tone. “We’re not doing that either. Vasily doesn’t look at me like you do. He sees a prop.”
“Then why does he carry your photo in his wallet?”
I swallow to sooth my burning throat. “What?”
Yev breathes out heavily before marching to the entryway table and pulling out a wallet-sized image.
When he hands it to me, my pulse thuds in my ears. “That’s my father’s photo. He’s carried it in his wallet for years. Where did you find it?”
The bile scorching my throat burns deep when he says, “In Vasily’s wallet.” Yev notices my shock is too high for me to speak. “Have they met?”
“Who?”
He arches a dark brow. “Vasily and your father.”
I shake my head. “If my dad was in Russia, I wouldn’t be anywhere near Vasily.” Needing something to take the edge off, I ask, “Are you sure you don’t have any vodka? Can you really call yourself a Russian if you don’t?”
I take a mental note to pay more attention to Nat’s quirks when Yev says, “I’m half my father, so tequila is more my jam.” He waits for the slightest furl to nudge my lips higher. “But I might be able to rustle up some if you’ll answer one more question for me.”
A second after I dip my chin, he returns us to the conversation he attempted to initiate in the car. “Tell me how you got the scar on your cheek.”
When my hand shoots up to hide the mark that is clearly more obvious than I realized, he pushes out, “It’s hardly visible, but I’ve studied your face in depth many times the past eight-plus years, so I know every tiny blemish.” He doubles the tingles I’m striving to ignore from his closeness by muttering, “It wasn’t there when I tied you to my bed.”
My heart thumps loudly when he traces the tiny white dot on the side of my nostril. “This one was. I first thought it was a chicken pox scar, but since it’s only the size of a pinhead, I assumed you rebelled in your youth and got your nose pierced.”
He is correct. My father was horrified when I turned up from school when I was thirteen with a friend’s earring hanging off my nose. Not only did it look ridiculous, but we also didn’t use sterile equipment.
“Then there is this one.” He drags his thumb across the sliver of silver behind my ear. “That was when you fell off your bike, and the strap of your helmet scratched you.” I squirm, turned on by his closeness when he scoots across the sofa to cup the back of my knee. “And this one”—I can’t stay still when his fingertips brush my largest scar—“is from when Alek pushed you into the vent under the basement stairs, and the steel foundation caught your skin.”