Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Just like him.
13
Iwake up tucked against Casimir’s body. He uncuffed me at some point during the night and now is breathing low and even. That, at least, I recognize on an intrinsic level. I’ve slept next to this man for two years. I know the cadence of his heartbeat against my ear, of his slow exhales and deep inhales. I don’t know if it’s reassuring or horrible that he can’t lie in his sleep.
I lift my head and study his expression, trying to compare it to the one I knew so well. His brow is relaxed in sleep; his jaw too. It makes him look younger. More like Luke, the man I originally fell in love with. Except he isn’t Luke. He never has been.
He’s Casimir Romanov.
I still can’t quite wrap my head around it . . . or the implications. Everything he’s said has been focused solely on me, aside from answering that more Romanovs are in Carver City. But he can’t be here because he’s so in love with me. He’s here at his father’s behest. Or, worse, his uncle’s. Jovan Romanov is head of the Romanov empire that stretches the globe and his reputation is akin to the boogeyman of the mafia. You don’t fuck with him if you want to live.
Getting out of here has to be the first priority. My family needs to know that there’s something coming. Something bad.
That, more than anything, gets me moving. It’s one thing to endanger myself with my choices. Hurting my parents? My aunts and uncles? Unacceptable.
Casimir’s hand shoots out and closes around my wrists before I make it more than an inch from him. He speaks without opening his eyes. “The door is locked, baby.”
Sure, but there’s a panic button. Pushing that probably cancels the contract right there and there. The Concierge doesn’t seem like someone to fuck with, and the rules of the auction are sacred. “Let me go.”
He opens his eyes and sighs. “We’re not past this then.”
I jerk away from him, and he releases me, dragging a finger over the ring I’m still wearing. It’s achingly apparent that he chose to free me. I didn’t do it with my own strength. I glare. “Tell me what your family wants with Carver City.”
Casimir stretches out and props his head on his arm. “The same thing we always want. Power. Territory. Money. Not necessarily in that order.”
I cross my arms over my chest, which feels ridiculous while I’m naked. “That is not a plan.”
“You didn’t ask for the plan.”
“Casimir.”
His slow smile makes my heart backflip. The only warning I get is a slight tensing of his abs, and then he’s on me, flipping me onto my back and settling between my thighs. “Say it again.”
He’s holding me down, but his expression is hardly threatening. I narrow my eyes. “No.”
“So difficult.”
“Answer my question. The plan. Your intentions. Whatever you want to call them. We’re talking about my family’s safety. I might be a fucking fool when it comes to dealing with you, but they are my priority.”
“I know.” He sighs again, as if already tired of this game. “I feel the same.”
The Romanovs are notoriously clannish. Their moves make the dangers that Carver City has seen in the past look like children’s games. They might marry for alliances and power, but they are loyal only to each other . . . and sometimes even that loyalty falters. At least that’s the recent rumor in regard to their American cousins. The New York branch has been making moves and . . .
I frown. “Were you part of that stuff that went down with the New York Romanov heir?”
He catches my hands and presses them to the bed on either side of my head. “Baby, I don’t want to talk about the family business right now. All you need to know is that we don’t want your family dead. There’s no need for war when an alliance brings the same outcome with fewer resources wasted.”
An alliance.
Something is going wrong in my stomach, my chest. It feels like I’m free-falling and slamming to earth, all at once. “I see.”
“Get that look off your face,” he snaps.
“Make me,” I snap right back.
“I’m not sorry I lied to you. If I’d told you the truth, you would have run crying to your parents and then things would have gotten complicated. If you’re waiting for an apology, you’re going to wait a long fucking time, baby.” His expression is so damn serious. “The moment I knew who you were, I claimed you as mine. We were always going to end up here. And I was never going to play fair.”
Because I’m the fucking Belmonte heir.
Did I think I was feeling reckless before? Well, that was nothing compared to right now. I want to scream at him, to claw at his face, to grab a gun and pull the trigger over and over until there are no bullets left. He lied to me, yes, but I’m starting to realize I was already rationalizing that away. Because he wanted me.