Page 31 of Marrying the Silver Fox

He drags his eyes away from me. There’s a hint of pain in his expression, as if I have stirred the sediment over some memory he’s done his best to keep under wraps for a long time.

But I deserve an answer, and I press again, not willing to give up quite that easily. “What do you mean? Doesn’t he run this entire business?”

“Yes, but he runs it in Russia,” he reminds me. “I’m the one who runs it in the US. And I know what people will think if my wife has to work to support herself.”

I stare at him for a long moment, my head spinning. He’s speaking like it has already been decided—like this is a moot point, an argument that’s not even worth seeing through.

I force out a snort, trying to dismiss the idea before it can take root. “No,” I reply, shaking my head. “Listen, Nikolai, I don’t care what you think I should be doing as your wife. I only married you because you put my reputation on the line, and it would be fucking idiotic to just turn my back on everything I’ve worked for⁠—”

“I’ll take care of you. Like I said.”

“And what does that entail, exactly?” I demand, frowning. “I just—what, move in with you, play at being the dutiful little housewife? Because let me tell you, that’s not the kind of shit I do well with. I’ve worked too hard to prove myself.”

“There are certain expectations that come with being married to a man like me,” he replies evenly. “And if you don’t meet them, people will talk. What’s worse for your reputation, stepping back from the business, or having people find out that you stepped in to marry me last-minute because one of your brides went missing?” His voice is icy, cold, calculated. He has me backed into a corner, and I don’t know if I can see a way out.

I press my lips together, willing myself to find another way to fight him on this, another angle I can use to force him to see things from my perspective. “Step back from the business? What do you mean by that?”

“Whatever it takes,” he replies.

“I have contracts ongoing,” I reply. “And if I let them down⁠—”

“I’ll buy them out.”

I hate the way he talks about this, as though everything I’ve worked for can just be waved away with enough money thrown at it.

“It’s more than just the money. This is my business we’re talking about. Would you abandon everything you’d worked for if⁠—”

“So hire someone to take it over for you,” he replies. “I’ll fund it. Keep your name on it, but let someone else run it.”

“No!” I exclaim. “I’m the one who handles everything, that’s why people hire me, because they know they can trust me to keep it all consistent. Not because⁠—”

I close my eyes as the plane finally reaches cruising altitude, not sure if the pain in my ears is because of the pressure change or how furious I am right now.

Being in Moscow was like living in some kind of fantasy, existing outside the realm of reality. And now I’m faced with the cold, hard truth—that I’m not just going to be able to turn around and walk back into my old life as though nothing happened. That Nikolai is going to take everything I’ve worked for, and the best I can do is pray that he doesn’t entirely force me to get rid of the business.

“How long are you going to make me do this?” I ask him, my voice cracking slightly around the edges. “I didn’t agree to be your goddamn slave, you know⁠—”

“You’re not my slave. You’re my wife,” he replies with the calm, collected tone of someone who has already made their mind up about the way this is going to go—someone who seems certain that they’re going to have things play out exactly as they intend to.

Doesn’t he realize how insane this sounds? Or is it that simple for him, the belief that he should have total control over everyone and everything in his life, and that includes even someone who wanted nothing to do with this in the first place?

“I would never have agreed to marry you if I knew this was what you were going to expect from me,” I retort hotly.

I know I should be keeping my head, but dammit, I can’t, not in the face of everything he’s saying to me. Acting like I should just roll over and take it, like some willing little wife. I might have organized weddings for years, but that doesn’t mean I put any stock in the kind of shit that comes with that tradition. It’s the twenty-first century, for God’s sake. I’m not just going to let myself be locked up in his home and forget about everything I’ve worked for.

“But you did,” he replies calmly. “And that means you have a certain role to assume. If you don’t, it could put my business in danger. Which puts you in danger along with it.”

I wrinkle my nose. “How does that work, exactly?”

He leans forward, the leather creaking slightly beneath him as he does so. His eyes are pinned to mine, piercing, unyielding. “If my enemies sense any kind of weakness in my world, anything at all, then they’re going to use that to take me down. You’re my wife, which means you’re as much a target for all this shit as I am now. You have as much reason to want me to succeed as anyone else does. Maybe more.”

Is that a threat? It lingers in the air like one, and I stare back at him for a long time, but he doesn’t break my gaze, not for a moment.

What exactly have I gotten myself into here? All of this is such a mess, I don’t even know where to begin. The way he’s saying it, it sounds as though I’m going to be expected to uphold my end of the bargain whether I like it or not, and I can only imagine what my life is going to look like now that I’m the wife of some powerful Bratva boss.

I lean my head against the window, eyes glazing over the sprawling clouds ahead of me. Even though we’re thousands of feet in the air, I have never felt more limited in my life.

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