35. Brooke
He’s not there when I wake up the next morning. Which is actually good because, in the stark light of a new day, I can see that my coming to his room last night was a big mistake. It blurred the clear line he drew in the sand yesterday when he used my own desires against me to pay me back for running away.
Feeling stupid, I quickly sneak out of his room and hurry along the hallway to my own room. But like the universe is conspiring against me, as I approach the staircase, I walk straight into Lev, who is coming up the stairs. I take a step back, and we eye each other like enemies.
Which I guess we are.
He’s made that very clear.
It’s then I notice he’s still wearing the same clothes he was wearing yesterday. His shirt is open far enough I can see the Zarkov tattoo across his chest, and his hair is messed up. Maybe it’s the hormones getting the better of me, but I suddenly wonder if he’s been with another woman. After all, I was the one who got off yesterday afternoon, and he wasn’t. And I had felt his arousal. Felt the hard outline. Saw the carnal flame in his eyes. Heard it in his voice. His desire was a wildfire burning hot and fierce.
But he didn’t want me.
Immediately, my jealousy gets the better of me. Did he take care of it himself, or did someone else do it for him?
He never came to bed. Where was he all night?
I’m not a jealous person by nature. Or suspicious, come to think of it.
Maybe if I had been, I might’ve seen what a philandering jerk Wilson was—
No, I’m not going to apologize for being trusting and na?ve. I’m done with beating myself up because of other people’s actions.
I’m also not going to let this jerk in front of me make me feel something as heavy and consuming as jealousy.
“Miss Masters,” he says with a sharp tone.
“Mr. Zarkov.”
He towers over me, and I’m suddenly caught in his heat. His scent. That dark gaze.
“Were you looking for me?” he asks, his voice too controlled.
His gaze sweeps over my breasts and my hard nipples poking through the flimsy fabric, and all I can think of is how his lips used to wrap around them and suckle and lick until I begged him to fuck me. I quickly wrap my arms around my chest to cover them, my cheeks growing pink under his heated gaze. Does he think of that, too, when he looks at me that way?
Does he remember how good it felt to slide his tongue over the perky nub and suck?
My lips part, and my breath quickens. The air between us is tight with unsaid words and unquenched need. The way he is looking at me. My body recognizes being this close to him, and she couldn’t give a shit about hating him right now.
Damn hormones.
Instinctively, I take a step back, and his eyes flare, and his jaw clenches.
“Yes, I want to see Igor,” I blurt out.
He nods curtly.
“I have assigned a detail of three men to you. If you choose to go to the hospital, then you are to speak to Pierce and have him organize the detail for the day.” His words are clipped and cold. Unfeeling. “You do not leave this property without clearing it with him first.”
I look into his eyes to see if I can find any trace of the man I’d slept next to last week before I fled. The man who pulled down his walls for me, only to rebuild them because he thinks I betrayed him.
But he is gone, and in his place is a cold robot.
If only he would talk to me without it becoming an argument.
If only he would believe me.
Trust me.
I’m ready to forgive him for not trusting me if he can forgive me for leaving.
“Lev—”
“If that is all, then I have things to do.”
He brushes past me, and I turn to watch him walk away.
“This is just so easy for you, isn’t it,” I call out.
He pauses with his broad back to me. He lifts his head but doesn’t say anything before he finally walks off.
After my run in with Lev at the top of the stairs, I go straight to my room to put on something a little less nipply, then go in search of Henry. I find him in one of the palatial bedrooms sliding his bag over his shoulder. He looks like he’s ready to walk out the door.
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m sorry, baby girl. I thought I’d be able to get some time off, but I don’t have enough vacation time, and HR are being real dicks about it. I have to be in the office first thing in the morning.”
“But you can’t leave,” I cry.
“I will be back as soon as I can.” He walks over to me and gives me a warm hug. “Besides, I think you and Lev need some space to figure things out.”
“We live in a palace. Space isn’t the issue.”
“You know what I mean.”
“If you leave I might actually murder him,” I whisper dramatically.
He winks. “Or kiss and make up. A lot.”
“Doubtful.”
“He’s hurt.”
“I didn’t betray him.”
“That’s not why he’s hurt.” He gives me a look like I’m missing the point. “You ran, and I don’t think he realized just how deep that was going to cut him.”
“You got all of that from the small amount of time you spent with him?”
“Sweet thing, I got that in the first five minutes with him. He’s in love with you.”
My eyes go round. “In love—”
“Head over heels. Smitten kitten. Batshit crazy for you.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Crazy is right.”
“He needs time.”
“He needs a lobotomy.”
Henry gives me a pitiful look as if I’m a lost cause but he doesn’t have the heart to tell me. “Give it some time. Right now he’s like a wounded bull. But in a few days he’ll be more approachable.”
It’s not a bad plan. Avoid Lev. I like it.
“What am I going to do without you?”
He presses a kiss to my forehead. “You’re going to figure things out. I promise. Besides, I’m just a phone call away.”
Watching him leave with Feliks fifteen minutes later, I suddenly feel all alone. I miss my friends. I miss Lev.
Urgh, I hate this.
To avoid running into his lordship, I get out of the house as soon as possible and visit Igor at the hospital. With my best friend gone, I feel even less inclined to spend time at the mansion with the grumpy pakhan.
I leave the house irritated by the way Lev is treating me, but when I arrive at the hospital, my mood immediately changes from being agitated by Lev’s mere existence to one of cold heartache.
Because Igor is still so sick and seeing him lying on the bed is a stark reminder of how everything can change on a dime. One minute you’re walking toward your car. The next, your body is broken and you’re fighting for life in a hospital bed.
Thankfully, he’s out of danger. He will live. He’s still on a ventilator and bandaged from head to toe. But the doctors are confident his lungs are healing enough for him to be able to breathe on his own soon.
When Enya visits the cafeteria for coffee and to stretch her legs, I sit beside him and take his hand in mine. And for a while, we just sit there, and the only sound is the machines keeping him alive.
Finally, I huff out a breath and let the words tumble out.
“Sorry I left. I got scared. But I shouldn’t have left. I should’ve stayed and tried to figure things out. It’s just that I’m not used to this world, and I got scared because… I’m pregnant, okay, and I had to think about the baby. Did you hear that, Igor? I’m having a baby. Lev’s baby. And I need you to wake up. Because I’m going to need your help keeping Lev from being over-the-top protective as my belly grows bigger.” I try to keep my tone upbeat. “You know how crazy possessive he can get. I mean, look at how he reacted when I stole his car…”
A sudden wave of grief and fatigue hits me, and I choke back a sob.
“Please wake up,” I whisper.
I press my forehead to the top of his hand and let the exhaustion of the last week crash through me.
Igor’s finger moves and brushes my cheek.
I lift my head. “Igor?”
He’s still unconscious, but his finger definitely moved.
“Can you hear me?” Again, his little finger moves, and I start to laugh, but tears prick at my eyes.
He’s going to make it.
I call the doctor, and a team of medical staff pile into the room, and one of them ushers me out so they can examine him. I stand at the viewing window, waiting anxiously for an update.
I wrap my arms around my waist. Surely, this is good news. Surely, this is a sign that he’s healing.
I feel Lev before I see him. It’s like a sixth sense. Or a dark cloud. I turn to look down the corridor and see him exiting the elevator, looking elegant and composed in a fresh new suit. He’s shaven, too, and my heart sends out a protest that the beautiful man walking toward me no longer wants me.
Our eyes meet, but his expression doesn’t change. It’s cold and unfeeling.
I know things are bad between us. But none of that seems to matter right now. Not with Igor improving.
“He’s waking up,” I say to him when he joins me at the window. “I think they’re removing him from the ventilator.”
Only now does his expression lose its cold edges. “Has the doctor said anything?”
“No, they ushered me out of the room, so I don’t know anything. But I was talking to Igor, and he could hear me. I know he could. He moved his finger. He knew I was crying—”
Levs frowns. “You were crying?”
He looks at me, concern in his eyes.
But I have to look away. Because if I don’t, I’ll cry. Thanks to these damn hormones and the fact that the man standing next to me has built a floor-to-ceiling wall around his heart and seems determined to keep me out.
“According to my pregnancy hormones, I seem to have a lot to cry about.”
He shifts his gaze from me to look into Igor’s room through the window, and I see his jaw harden.
The silence and tension between us are so thick you’d need a chainsaw to cut through them.
“Are you going to give me the silent treatment forever?” I ask. “We’re having a baby—”
“And I’ve told you that I will provide for you and the baby.” He stares straight ahead as he talks. “You will want for nothing.”
“But I want you.”
My words rattle him. Oh, he does his best not to show it, but I see that flicker of humanity and pain on his robotic face.
But when he slowly turns his face to me, they are gone. “That is not an option.”
His words aren’t spoken cruelly. Just with cold, harsh fact.
“Fine. When you’re over your tantrum, you know where to find me.”
When I try to walk away, he takes me by the arm. “What you said earlier is not true. This isn’t easy for me. It’s not fucking easy at all.”
Hope blooms in my chest. “Then talk to me.”
He lets me go. “I’ve said all I intend to say about the topic.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
And without another word, I walk away.