My guns already owned the market in New York. But if I wanted to keep expanding, I had to pull every useful resource into my hands. The Rossi shipping lanes in Southeast Asia were one of them.
"...I got it. I won't say anything." Sweat beaded on Elena's forehead. Her voice shook.
I let go. She crumpled to the floor like her legs had quit.
"Get out, you disgusting slut."
She reached for her dress where it had fallen. Bent like that, her soft breasts hung, her waist looked even slimmer, her ass even higher. She dressed too slowly. It was hard not to wonder if she was still trying something.
I sat on the edge of the bed and didn't look at her again. Finally, I heard the door open and close.
The room still stank of sex. The image of Elena bent over for me stayed burned behind my eyes.
My heart was with Isabella. That was the truth. Whatever I'd done to Elena had only happened because I'd mistaken her for Isabella. But that tight, gripping heat had left a brand on me. The thing between my legs had memorized it.
"Fuck," I muttered, dropping back onto the mattress. "She was goddamn tight."
So what the hell was I doing? Thinking about that slut's body? I was out of my mind.
I tried to fix it by falling asleep immediately, but the second I shut my eyes, I heard the door push open again.
"Why the fuck did you come back?"
It was past midnight. Everyone should've been asleep. Besides Elena crawling back, I couldn't imagine who else it could be. If she kept pushing, I wasn't sure I wouldn't just handle her the brutal way.
"Who came back?" Isabella's voice cut through the dark.
I shot up.
Isabella stood there with her arms crossed, glaring at me like I'd personally offended her.
"It was Elena, wasn't it?" she said, her tone sharp. "I just saw her leaving your room."
Fuck.
I knew it. The second I got tangled up with that damn woman, nothing good came of it.
Chapter 3
Elena
The gallery show I'd been waiting on for months was already halfway over, and still nobody stayed at my booth longer than a minute. I got it. In the art world, I was nobody.
But the way their faces shifted—first impressed, then flat-out disappointed—once they heard my name still twisted something in my chest. That drop felt just as brutal as what Kiryan had done to me last night.
He had held me, driven into me like I belonged to him. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel his heat. And then he'd pointed at me and called me the nastiest thing I'd ever heard.
"Get the fuck out, you disgusting slut."
It cut straight through me.
All night my eyelids had weighed like stone, and I still couldn't sleep.
I knew I shouldn't have expected anything from him. But I didn't get to choose what I felt—same way I never chose to fall for my sister's fiancé. That alone was torture. Now I had to swallow the disgust of the man I loved.
God—if you were there—couldn't you tell me why I had to hurt like this?
I kept my head down, trying to blink away the sting at the corners of my eyes. That was when a pair of stilettos stepped into view.