Page 81 of Taken By My Grumpy Pakhan

Nikolai lifted his head, his features relaxed and calm. “When are we leaving?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

His brow furrowed. “I thought it was tomorrow.”

“Genevieve needs time to get ready.”

He lowered his glass. “Genevieve? Why is she coming?”

“Because she’s my assistant,” I answered with a tone of finality, but it must’ve flown over his head or he simply didn’t care enough.

“She’s your assistant at work; this is hardly a work meeting.”

Nikolai was right; however, my mind was made up.

She wanted to ignore me and I was going to see how she intended to do that in a close space.

“She can’t be in the meetings and she certainly can’t follow us anywhere. What exactly are you planning?”

“I have work she has to do.”

“Other than catering to your dick?”

My jaw tightened. I’d never given Nikolai the details of my relationship with Genevieve, but he wasn’t naive. He knew something was definitely up, but it didn’t give him the right to speak freely.

“She does not solely cater to my dick.”

“Then what is she coming to do in Russia? Because the way I see it, you’ll only be heaping problems for yourself by bringing her around Svetlana’s brothers after what happened.”

My mind shot back to Svet’s unwelcome visit to the office the other day. She had almost nothing to say and ended up disrupting my meeting for nothing, and left without touching the coffee she made Genevieve run around for.

Her message was loud and clear. She wanted me to know she was onto me and she wanted to show Genevieve her place.

Too bad I wasn’t the kind of man anyone pushed around. I sent her out when I found out she had nothing tangible to say, but it was already too late.

Genevieve had already escalated it into a freezing cold war and only acknowledged me with a few words and monosyllabic replies.

“Svet and her brothers will have to get used to the fact that I have an assistant and she’ll be coming along.”

Nikolai sighed, leaving the bar with a glass of amber liquid. “So you’re just gonna bring her along and leave her the whole time like last time?”

“She knew what she signed up for when she took this job.”

“Or you just really want her around you.”

I threw him a funny look. “Since when does an assistant traveling with her boss translate to such?”

“Since the meeting in question has absolutely nothing to do with work and said boss is putting her in the same room as him.”

My eyes flashed. “You looked through my itinerary?”

“Unfortunately, part of my job includes knowing where you are, who you are with, and when you’ll be there.”

I swallowed my anger, holding back the urge to tell him to stop checking in.

“And there’s Svet too.”

“What about Svet?”