Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Maybe Yuri can sense I want to be alone. After dropping me at my room, he says, “I’ll give you some time, miss. Please, if you need anything, do not hesitate …” He gestures to a landline telephone, then leaves.
The room is large and luxurious, with another four-poster bed, tall windows overlooking the grounds, and a lemony-clean scent. I drop onto the bed, pressing down on my belly.
A knock on the door comes in a few minutes. I wonder who it could be. Maybe Yuri told me when he was talking during the walk here, but I only heard a few words. My mind fixated on Drake, the marriage, escaping, and how futile even thinking about it is.
“Hello?”
“Mila?” a man speaks. His voice is deep but also somehow friendly. I’d put money on it that he’s wearing a smirk.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Can I come in? Figured it’d be cruel, you coming here without a Sokolov saying hello.”
Ah, a Sokolov. So this is my future husband.
I stand up, fixing my hair. Not because I want to look good for him but because I know I have to. I know what my duty is.
“Yes,” I say, turning to the door.
I bite down on a gasp when I see him. Is this what desire feels like? He’s tall, broad, and strong, wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and stylish glasses slotted into the collar. His hair is long on top, shaved on the sides, flopping over his forehead. He has a casual smirk on his face, and his light beard makes him look oh-so-appealing in a way I can’t quite define.
Suddenly, the world doesn’t seem so bleak. To stop Dad from hurting my brother, I have to be with this man?
Okay, maybe I can deal with this.
“It’s nice to meet you, Dimitri,” I say after a pause, realizing I’m just staring at him.
“Oh, Mila,” he says.
Oh, Mila. The way he says my name makes me tingle all over. There’s a huskiness in his voice, a passion. If he kissed me right now, I wouldn’t complain.
“I’m not Dimitri,” he says, and my belly drops. “I’m Mikhail Sokolov, his younger brother.”
Crap.
CHAPTER 2
MIKHAIL
Ha, ha, ha. Life is a joke. I always knew that fate, God, or just the world—whatever a person wants to believe—had a funny sense of humor. Maybe being the spare, as my father loved to call me, has given me extra time to think and more space to analyze just what a comedic mess the world can be.
Mila Petrov looks up at me, her hair gorgeously dark and curly, her eyes wide and curious, her lips curved into a nervous smile. Her body has me almost forgetting that she’s my brother’s bride-to-be. I nearly grab her hips and pull her right up against me.
“When you meet Dimitri,” I say, trying to keep my voice casual so she can’t hear just how much she’s messing with my head, “you’ll see how different we are. You’ll laugh.”
“Yeah,” she says quietly. “I bet.”
She looks frightened, making it challenging to keep my usual smirk on my face. That’s usually the best way to deal with the world. Just smirk at it like the big joke it is.
“Do you need anything?” I ask.
“Maybe the Wi-Fi passcode?” she asks.
“I guess you want to check in with your friends,” I reply, nodding.
The way her eyes snap open wide, then quickly narrow as if she should feel guilty for letting her anger show makes me want to hug her. Before my father took his own life, he told my older brother that if he didn’t marry Mila, he had made arrangements to give the city to Nikolai, Mila’s father. Nikolai Petrov doesn’t have a good reputation. Marrying Mila would be the right move. Yet suddenly, the idea sickens me.
“I don’t have social media,” she says after a pause. “I just want to continue with my work.”
“Work?” I ask.
“I’m learning how to make websites,” she says, with an adorable note of pride in her voice.
This is getting funnier by the second. So not only is Mila Petrov the only woman I’ve ever met who makes me feel, well, makes me feel, full stop, but she also has the same passion as me. I can hear the enthusiasm. I can see it. It makes me want to kiss her even more, but that’s not saying much. Everything she does, I bet, will make me want to do that. She lit something inside me the moment I laid eyes on her.
“I’ll give you the password,” I say, walking over to the desk and jotting it down on a notepad. “But I should warn you …”
I trail off when I turn back to her. She’s watching me in a cautious, captivating way. I don’t know what she thinks about me. I want to, desperately, for some reason.