Page 35 of Savage Little Lies

Another knock sounds on the door.

I unlock it and pull it open, my body tensing to prepare for anything.

“Dmitri!” Annika stands in the enclosed hallway, tears in her eyes. She rushes to me, throwing her arms around my neck. “I can’t believe it! I was almost killed last night!”

I don’t put my arms around her, surprise and annoyance making me go as stiff as a board. Aside from any gun-wielding enemies, she’s the last person that I want to see right now.

“What are you doing here?” I ask her as I grab her upper arms and pry her off me.

Annika sniffles and wipes her eyes, despite no actual tears falling. “You disappeared last night. Some of your men hid me and my friends in the hotel until the threat was over. I was so worried about you.”

She was worried that she had lost her opportunity to have a rich husband.

“I’m fine. You seem to be too,” I state as my eyes quickly sweep over her. She’s in a pink tracksuit without a single bruise or scratch.

“And good thing for you. If something had happened to me, my father would be furious,” Annika says as she looks up at me. “You wouldn’t want that, right?”

I hold her gaze, my jaw tightening.

Once I give Annika the ring, it’s over. I’ll never be able to have Cara in the way that I want.

“No,” I reply in a tight voice. “I don’t want that.”

Annika smiles and rests her hands on my chest over my white t-shirt, her touch cold. “What happened to you last night? Did you even try to find me?”

She pisses me off to no end, but I did just leave her there to die. All my focus was on making sure that Cara was safe.

“I lost sight of you. I tried to look for you, but my men told me that you were safe, so I left since I was the intended target,” I tell her, lying right to her face.

I have to. If I tell her the truth, she’ll be furious and go right to her father to complain. As the wedding engagement looms closer, now more than ever, I have to be on my best behavior.

But that’s hard to do whenever I’m around Cara.

All I want to do is rip off those tiny dresses that she wears to work and show her how crazy she drives me. But I draw a hard line at cheating after the ceremony.

Which only leaves…the time before the engagement is official.

One night with her.

Before the ring.

I’ll get her out of my system.

I need her once. Then I’ll bury it.

“Aw, you were worried,” Annika coos as she reaches up and places her hand on my cheek. Her nails are filed to a sharp point, their edges scraping my skin. “I’m here now. I’m okay.”

“Right,” I say, uneasiness creeping under my skin.

Soon, she’ll be all that I have. The only woman I can touch.

Even having her hands on me doesn’t feel right. Everything feels so damn fake. So forced. Are we really supposed to live the rest of our lives like this?

“Until the shooters are caught, I want us to be together more. I feel safer with you,” Annika tells me with big doe eyes. “I know you’ll protect me next time.”

Hopefully, we can find the shooters and dispose of them so that there won’t be a next time. But as long as I’m alive, there will always be someone who wants me dead. Once Annika becomes my wife, there will be an additional target on her back.

She already has one from being her father’s daughter.