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I paced around the room, thinking about her—the woman I loved. I never thought I could admit to such a thing. I never thought I was capable of loving any woman. When we first met, Marinka was so naive and clueless. I pushed her to act like Russina, used her for my own ends. Her first time happened with a few of my business associates at my club. She had never been in a sex club before, yet I expected her to entertain one of my guests. She messed up that first meeting so badly, so I punished her afterwards, with a good spanking.
I was a complete jerk, yet she was a spitfire at times, riling me with her little bouts of rebellion. People thought her weak, but I saw another person within, striving to come out.
The memory made my dick hard, the thought of how wet she’d been for me. That was the beginning of the end for me. I got lost in her, drowned until I became a doomed man. A lovesick puppy.
With each strike across her reddened flesh, muffling her moans to pretend she wasn’t turned on, each harsh word tumbling from my lips, each time she made me lose my shit … and every time she submitted to my endless games, she wormed her way inside my heart. And for the longest, I had no fucking clue she was still a virgin. She was mine, in every sense of the word.
A dismal chuckle escaped my lips.
Dr. Stevens was going to talk to Marinka. He must have already told her about her pregnancy. I was a chicken, leaving it to him to sort out, but he insisted on breaking it to her gently. I’d already upset her with my rant about her parents, when I should have just kept my mouth shut. I just couldn’t resist starting on the wrong foot. So now, she was scared of me. I recognized the look she gave me—the deer-in-headlights expression she’d hit me with on the yacht. We’d come such a long way from that. From the first stumbling blocks in our relationship, to our first kiss, to our trip to France and our wedding. It had been a whirlwind that turned my life upside down.
Yet, here we were now—back to square one.
“Boss, they’re here,” Pedro said, entering the room and pulling me away from my thoughts.
“Bring them in. Make sure they don’t go anywhere near Lilly,” I instructed.
As I waited, my insides roiled with frustration and anger. Everything was falling apart, but I had to keep it together.
Vlad walked in with a sullen look on his face. He looked older, more frail, and he must have lost a good few pounds since I’d last seen her. Marta, on the other hand, looked well put together. She’d gained a few wrinkles but masked them well with layers of makeup and a stony expression. Marinka looked a little like her—same full mouth and blue eyes, but that’s where the similarities ended. Personality-wise, she was more like her father, for better or worse, than her self-entered bitch of a mother.
“Sebastian,” Vlad said when I motioned for them to sit down. No handshakes—there was only so far I was ready to go with this charade.
“Vlad, Marta, now that you’re here, let’s just get to it. We have a lot to go through.” Marta rested her leg on her knee, eyeing me carefully, while I scrambled for an intro.
“Why did you call us here, Sebastian? We have nothing to talk about. Since Marinka is … well … not with us, I don’t see the point,” she said, giving a hell of a lot of attention to her red-painted nails.
Vlad gave her a disgusted look, and I summoned the gods of patience to keep me from ripping their heads off. Even though Vlad supposedly cared for his daughter, it wasn’t like he’d tried too hard to maintain contact since Marinka fell into a coma. Not that I gave him a choice, but a father’s love should know no bounds. I understood that now.
Annoyed, I decided to rip the Band-Aid off.
“Marinka woke up this morning,” I said.
Shock and disbelief flashed like a neon marquis on Vlad’s face, and he shot up from his chair. He waved his arms around. “Where … how … Can … can…”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop babbling, Vlad,” Marta chided before turning to me. “So where is she?”
Marta had lost her son, Marinka’s brother, to suicide, and she never bat an eyelid. He’d killed himself because of her, a boy in his teens. Now, she sounded as though she was speaking about where to go for dinner next. Dispassionate, impassive, nonchalant.
“You don’t get to ask questions,” I barked. “The only reason I called you is because she asked me to. She has a few problems … remembering things. So, here’s how this is gonna go. You’re going to wait for me to contact you with a date and time. Vlad, be available.” I fixed my gaze on the man, and he nodded. “I’ll give you more details later.”
“What about me?” Marta asked.
“You get to shut the fuck up and stay put. When I call, it’s for Vlad and Vlad alone. If you even attempt to come, I’ll throw you to the dogs.”
She had the decency to look wounded. More of an act, but I’d take it, as long as I didn’t have to deal with her bullshit. I knew the truth of her treatment of her children, and she better be grateful Marinka had asked me to let them be because if it were for me back then, they’d be six feet under already.
Now I had Lilly to think about.
“So now you get to have your slave at your beck and call once again,” Marta mocked. “It’s not like you care, so why point fingers?”
I took a step toward her, then stopped myself. Clenching my fists at my sides, I silenced her with a mere look. “I invite you to watch what you say right now, or I swear to God, your luck will run out real fast. Don’t make me do something I might regret.”
She pouted, just like Lilly would do when she didn’t get her way. Only it didn’t look near as attractive on a grown woman. Vlad sat back down, his eyes glossing over.
“Your daughter is a fighter,” I added, “which is more than I can say for either of you spineless excuses forparents.”
Marta seemed to hold back a retort—wise decision.
