Chapter 18 #2
“It’s me he doesn’t like,” taking her hand, I pulled her in to me. Curling my arm around her waist and dipping her low. “And even if he doesn’t like you, then I like you more than enough for everyone. Ignore the looks, stares, and whispers. They are all just jealous because you got me.”
Leah’s eyebrows shot up. “Big head,” she teased.
I couldn’t help it, I grinned. “Oh, I’m going to show you exactly how big my head is as soon as we can leave this place,”I said, my eyes scanning the room.
There was not one person in this room that I wanted to talk to, but there were some I needed to. My father was right about that.
“I might wait until we get home, but more than likely, I won’t be able to wait, and I’ll take you in the car. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Leaning over her, I tucked a curl behind her ear and let my lips drift across it. She shivered in response, which only made my cock harder.
Over and over again, my fingers flexed into her hip. She didn’t moan, but she didn’t need to. I could tell by the hitch in her breath and the way her breasts heaved under the plunging neckline of her dress that she liked the idea of that just as much as I did.
“Yes.” Reaching up, she brushed her fingers into the hair curling at the back of my neck. “Yes, I would like that very much.”
My cock throbbed. “Then, let’s get out of here?”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t want to stay?”
Again, I glanced around. “I would rather spend the evening with you in our bed, but I do need to speak to my father again and a few of the others. As soon as I’ve done that, we can—”
“Viktor.” A man slid up to my side. He was middle-aged and podgy around the middle. “Your father wants to speak to you,” his eyes barely flicked in Leah’s direction. “Alone.”
He walked away without another word.
Sighing, I shook my head. “I’ll have to see what he wants.”
“Go, I’m going to find a seat and maybe get some water.”
Tucking my fingers under her chin, I brought her lips to mine. “The bar is free, or grab yourself some champagne from a waiter. Make yourself at home.”
Finding her lips with mine, I kissed her softly.
“I’ll be as quick as I can, and then you will have my full attention.”
Expectantly, she looked at me. “Promise?”
Another kiss. “You have my word.”
“Good.” This time, she reached up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to mine.
Everyone was right. I had been neglecting her, and that had to stop tonight.
The three men surrounding my father were all laughing. Only my father and I weren’t. He was eyeing me warily, and I was growing more and more impatient.
He’d wanted to speak to me alone, so I’d expected some kind of business talk, but no, they were just discussing their mistresses, how hot they were, and how different from their wives. It wasn’t a conversation I felt I could take part in because my wife was beautiful.
“I don’t think young Viktor agrees with us,” one of them laughed, but I barely looked at him. My eyes kept scanning the room.
Leah had been sitting alone on one of the white clothed tables nursing a glass of champagne and looking flushed, but I had looked away for just a second and she had vanished. I couldn’t see her in the crowd anywhere, and it was making me uneasy. Where the hell was she?
“It’s because my son is besotted with his young wife. He’s still enjoying the tightness,” Boris chuckled.
I turned to him with a growl. “Don’t even think to finish that sentence.
My wife isn’t one of your whores. She deserves your respect.
” I turned angry eyes on the rest of the men with the smug shit-eating smiles.
“And don’t even presume to call me young again.
I am neither a child, or someone you can mock.
Keep my wife’s name out of your mouths and her body out of your eyes. ”
An uneasy silence fell, but just for a second, before my father laughed again. “And what are the rules about keeping your wife’s body out of our hands because she seems to be enjoying Piotre’s hands on her.”
Confused, I turned, and there she was.
Dancing in the middle of the dance floor, the overhead lights making her dress sparkle. Even as I watched, she smiled up at the man who was twirling her, and she was laughing at something he said, like he wasn’t my enemy .
At my sides, my hands clenched into fists. “What the fuck is he doing here?”
“I invited him.” From his chair, my father shrugged. “And I’m glad I did. My new daughter-in-law seems to enjoy his company, but then, they are much closer in age than you and her. They probably have a lot in common.”
Fuck him, he had done this on purpose. He had separated us so that asshole could get his hands on her. I didn’t know what reason he would have to be in cahoots with our enemy, but more than likely, it was because my father hated me.
Then, of course, there were the rumors that Poitre was actually my half-brother.
“Maybe she will be able to smooth over the animosity between us all.” Boris laughed again. “It looks like young Leah might be useful after all.”
“Yeah, on her back.” Someone chuckled, and laughter filled up.
Rage filled me. It filled me so completely that I shook with it. I saw nothing around me but her in the arms of another man. Whirling, I closed my hand around the throat of the man who had spoken, lifting him off the floor so that he spluttered. His eyes bugged out of his head.
But I barely looked at him. My eyes were glued to the pathetic man in the wheelchair.
My father. “Say something like that about my wife again.” I aimed the words at him and not the man clawing at my hand as he struggled to breathe, but I was talking to them both and any other person who might want to insult her.
“And I will pull out every single one of your teeth and make them into a necklace for her. When you insult her, you insult me.”
I dropped the man, and he fell to his knees, gasping. A murmur went up from the men around us. Yeah, they understood. On paper, the old man was in charge, but not for long, and they knew better now than to challenge me.
If any of them did, if even one of them looked at my wife sideways, I would end them all. There was no room in my organization for disrespect or disloyalty, and these men needed to remember it.
Ignoring the man at my feet, I turned to my father. “Do you understand?” I enunciated each word and saw the old man frown. The corners of his mouth tilted downward.
His time was over. Mine was just starting.
“If anyone so much as looks at my wife in the wrong way, I will end you.”
Ignoring the men, I strode away, pushing past the people who tried to step into my way and talk to me. The only thing I saw was her, laughing in the arms of my enemy, letting him touch her, and I wanted to kill both of them.
Catching her by the shoulders, I spun her around so fast and suddenly that she toppled off her stiletto heels and almost went down.
“Viktor,” my enemy stepped forward like he was going to help her. My glare stopped him dead.
“It’s time we leave.” Catching my wife under her elbow, I steadied her. “Please go to the car now, Leah. I have some things to discuss with—”
Her eyes flickered between the two of us, and her forehead creased. “We were just dancing. It wasn’t—”
A smug smile spread across his face, one that I was going to wipe off with my fist or maybe the butt of a gun if he wasn’t careful.
“Go to the car. Our evening is over.” I punctuated each word with a pause.
“Viktor,” she tried again.
My temper snapped. Why did she have to do this? In front of everyone as well. They were all watching, and what they would remember was her in the arms of my enemy. Dipping my shoulder, I lifted her, trapping her against my shoulder like a sack of potatoes with my hand on her sequinned ass.
“Put me down, Viktor.” She wiggled.
In answer, I slapped her ass hard. A woman in the crowd gasped, but I ignored her.
“You seem incapable of behaving, Leah, so no, I won’t put you down. We are going home.” Again, I let my palm fall onto her butt, partly because she needed to be taught a lesson, but mostly because I loved the way she gasped every time I did.
“What, so you can lock me in my room again, you brute?” she hissed.
Ignoring her, I turned my attention back to the younger man in front of me.
“If you ever think to put your hands on my wife again, I’ll take away your ability to touch anything ever again. Stay away from her.”