Chapter 20
Zoya~
As soon as Kasimir walked through the front door, I was on him, and I didn’t care if he was able to snap my neck without even trying. He could not hold me prisoner here, and there had to be a way to get through to him, right?
“I want to go home,” I told him before the door even shut behind him. “I can’t stay here, Kasimir.”
“So you’ve said,” he remarked absently.
“Kasimir, c’mon...we have to talk about this,” I said, trying to rein in my inner shrew.
“I’ve already laid out your options, Zoya,” he replied calmly. “You either agree to live with me, or you don’t. One will provide you a certain amount of freedom, the other prevents you from being able to leave this house.”
That drew me up short.
“Wait...what do you mean?” I asked. “What do you mean that one will provide me a certain amount of freedom?”
“You can’t honestly believe that I’d let you run around unattended now,” he answered, confusing me further.
“Why wouldn’t you?” I asked, seriously flummoxed. “I’ve been getting around just fine on my own all this time.”
“That was before you belonged to me,” he stated evenly. “I’ve lots of enemies, Zoya.”
What in the hell?”
“What?”
“Once word gets out that you are mine, it will draw a lot of attention, and so your safety is now a priority,” he explained, and someone really needed to put a stop to this madness.
“What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Once you’ve gotten more comfortable with the idea of us as a couple, we are getting married, lepestok,” he announced like a certified lunatic. “Since that will make you a Korolev by marriage, my enemies will now be yours, and one can never be too careful.”
“What?”
“Also, my father insists on speaking with you, so you can expect an audience with him sometime in the next couple of days,” he went on, and I could feel my heart skip a beat with that news.
“Aleksei Korolev wants to speak to me?” I choked out. “Why on earth does your father want to speak with me? What could he possibly have to talk to me about?”
“He’s concerned about me holding you against your will, and so he’d like to speak to you about it,” he answered, answering as if this conversation was a perfectly normal one. “He’s worried that you may want to go to the police over this.”
“Yeah, like I’d report a Korolev to the police,” I snorted.
Kasimir just grinned. “Glad to hear that you’re not completely suicidal.”
Ignoring that, I said, “Kasimir, you can’t keep me here.”
“Are we back to that, lepestok?” he asked, sighing as if I were trying or something. “I’ve laid out your options, now all you’ve got to do is choose one. Stay trapped in here all day and night or commit to me and still have a semblance of a life.”
The problem was that he was serious, and I knew it.
Kasimir wasn’t toying with me, and this definitely wasn’t a joke.
While last night had affected me more than I’d like to admit, whatever it’d done to Kasimir, it was clear that he had no interest in going back to what we’d been before that damn auction.
I also knew that I only had one option here.
No matter what, there was no way that I was going to live the rest of my life trapped in Kasimir’s condo, a nice condo though it might be.
Even if the relationship with my mother wasn’t garbage right now, I still wanted a chance to work on repairing what was wrong.
As for my job...yeah, it might not be a glamorous one, but it paid my bills and allowed me to depend on myself, which was very important to me after that mess with my uncle.
“What am I supposed to tell my mother?” I asked as I did my best to accept my fate. “She knows that I have no money to move out on my own, and the last thing that I want to tell her is that I’m living with the family who killed her brother.”
Kasimir cocked his head, a smirk on his lips. “So, then I don’t imagine that you’ll be inviting her to our wedding?”
“I’m not marrying you, Kasimir,” I blurted, trying to sound confident and sure.
“But you are, lepestok,” he replied seriously. “Maybe not tomorrow, but you and I will marry eventually.”
Choosing to fight that battle another day, I repeated my earlier question. “What am I supposed to tell my mother?”
“I advise you to tell her the truth,” he finally answered. “It’ll save you a headache in the end.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any kind of strategy for dealing with a man like Kasimir, so I was going to have to play this by ear, and right now, I was deaf in both of them.
The man standing in front of me wasn’t interested in helping me navigate any of this, but that was because guiding me along wouldn’t benefit him.
He wanted to continuously catch me off guard in order to keep the edge that he had in this situation, which wasn’t surprising at all.
“Fine,” I finally said. “I’ll move in with you, but you have to give me something first.”
Crossing his arms over his chiseled chest, he asked, “And what is that?”
“I want some space-”
“No.”
“Don’t,” I bit out. “Hear me out.”
“I’m not giving you any fucking space,” he shot back. “Not now, not ever.”
“What is with that song?” I asked, getting momentarily sidetracked.
“Never mind that,” he said, but his voice cooled a bit.
Letting out a deep breath, I said, “I want to go home. I want to go home, and I want the time and space to...to explain to my mother how...how...”
“How what?” he taunted.
“How I got myself into this fucking mess,” I snapped. “I want to...I want to find a way to explain without ruining whatever is left of our relationship. She’s owed an explanation, and I’m owed the opportunity to try to give her one.”
“How do you figure that you’re owed anything, Zoya?”
“Because I didn’t do anything wrong!” I yelled. “All my life, I’ve done the right thing, and my uncle’s actions should not continue to be my responsibility!”
Kasimir didn’t say anything for a while, but when he finally spoke, it was to prove to me that I wasn’t the one in charge here. “If I give you this, then you need to give me something in return.”
“I’ve already given you too much,” I reminded him. “Last night was plenty proof of that.”
While I’d been a willing participant through it all, I hadn’t asked for any promises when I’d chosen to let Kasimir play with every inch of my body last night.
I’d given myself to him freely, and I hadn’t even batted an eyelash when he’d had me on all fours, his hips pushing into me from behind.
Believing that I’d never see or be with him again, I’d made the most of our night together, and now I was paying for it.
I’d wanted one night to forget how horrible my life was, but now I’d never be able to forget it.
Suddenly, Kasimir was standing in front of my face, and his hand was wrapped around my neck in an effort to make his point.
“If you think last night was enough to slate my thirst for you, then you are out of your fucking mind, lepestok. What you gave me last night was your body, which I will continue to take any-fucking-time that I want. However, I will not stop until your mind thinks of nothing but me, your heart beats only when it hears my voice, and your soul recognizes only mine. I will not be satisfied until you can’t exist without me buried deep inside you every night. ”
Again, I knew that he was serious, and that was the scariest thing about all this. “Kasimir, that’s not healthy.”
“Baby, I’m not trying to have a healthy relationship with you,” he smirked as he dropped his hand from my neck. “I’m trying to have a love story that people are going to read about for centuries to come.”
If he were anyone but Kasimir Korolev, those words would be what every woman wanted to hear. However, because he was Kasimir Korolev, his words sounded like a threat, and that’s because they were. He was a threat to everything sane and right with the world, and this was now my life.
Getting back on track, I asked, ‘What is it that you want?”
“I want you to quit your job at the diner,” he answered. “If you insist on working, it’ll be someplace a lot safer than where you work now.”
He wasn’t saying that I couldn’t work, so I was going to take that as a win. “Fine, but I’m giving them a proper two-weeks’ notice,” I told him. “Ruby’s was the only place that would hire me after what you did, so I am not going to leave them hanging.”
Yeah, the man did not look happy.