Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
When the flash of cameras doesn’t reach one tenth of the glare Zoya and Mikhail’s entrance caused, my grandfather’s chief of staff leans into my side and mutters, “It needs to look authentic. If it doesn’t, call this off now and tell your grandfather you’ve changed your mind. A loveless marriage will turn voters off even more than your father forever knocking up his mistresses.”
Word to the wise, don’t mock a man who has nothing to lose.
It never ends well.
Kolya is seconds from learning that the hard way before he distracts me by nudging his head in the direction Zoya went. “Let’s just hope they don’t blame her for the first out-of-wedlock bastard birthed into the Dokovic realm if the procedure last night was effective.”
He doesn’t need to announce who is behind his underhanded threat. The shakiness of his voice tells me everything I need to know.
He fears the wrath of the federation and believes I should depict the same trepidation.
I will never bow at the feet of an organization so cowardly they refuse to show their faces. But since I can’t announce that yet, against the protests of my cock and the small snippets of morals my mother drummed into me before she was forcefully removed from my life, I band my arm around Arabella’s slim waist and tug her into my side.
A vein in her neck thuds louder than Kolya’s relieved sigh when I tilt our hips with an intimacy only someone who has bedded her would have before I brush my nose against hers.
I inherited many traits from my father the past thirty years. This is the only one I’ve ever replicated from before my mother disappeared. Despite the many stepmothers I endured during my youth, my father only ever used this move on my mother. It is the perfect skit to have those around me believing I am in love because my father has never loved anyone but himself. My mother, however, let him get away with murder the instant their noses brushed.
The journalists eat up my rare public display of affection. They snap a hundred pictures, and the heat of their shouted words as they ask a range of questions about our “supposed” upcoming nuptials doubles the hue spreading across Arabella’s cheeks.
I’m barely touching her, so her mother’s claim of her purity must be accurate.
Only yesterday, the knowledge would have sparked a fierce interest in me.
Today, my cock doesn’t feel the slightest flutter.
It is as uninspired as the names listed on the files Dr. Hemway delivered to my hotel this morning, and as insipid as my mood becomes when Petr, the man assigned to trace Zoya’s every step, announces into my earpiece that he’s lost visual of his target.
Arabella squeaks when my grip on her waist turns deadly. I wring it like I want to Petr’s neck while my glare at the security camera in the corner of the new apartment block has him coughing up an excuse that makes me instantly hard despite my fury.
“She kneed me in the balls before popping her fist into my mouth.” His next set of words comes out with a stutter of a man on the verge of peeing his pants. “I-I didn’t retaliate. Bu-but she kneed me hard enough that by the time I caught my breath, she was long gone.”
“Kon—”
I don’t even get out his entire name before Konstantine announces he is tracking Zoya’s movements from when she left the hotel and that he will have an update on her location within minutes. “Where do you want me to send the coordinates?”
With my arm wrapped around the waist of my alleged fiancée, my reply shouldn’t be immediate. But it is. “Send them directly to me.”
I don’t wait for Konstantine to respond before I move away from the media endeavoring to work out the cause of the groove between my brows. He would follow my orders even if it instigated the massacre of an entire family. He’s good like that.
Unfortunately, not all members of my team are as observant of the rules. My return to the foyer of Mikhail’s building casts numerous shadows on the pristine marble floors.
I haven’t even conjured up an excuse to leave, yet Dina is already bitching in my ear about how it’ll look bad if I leave now. “Your father—”
“Knows when to shut his mouth,” I snap out, annoyed I’m having my authority questioned by someone who should only ever be seen in the background of every frame. “I have an urgent matter I need to take care of.”
“Okay. That’s fine,” Arabella murmurs at the same time Dina asks, “What kind of matter?”
Again, her tone better take a back seat before I place her behind the scenes permanently.
She strives to wipe the fear from her eyes. It is still prominent when she leans in and whispers, “I’m only asking, Kazimir, because Arabella is in a prime ovulation window.” I am lost, and for once, I’m glad. “It is the perfect time for conception.”