Chapter 51
STEFAN
“You’re brooding again.”
Taras slides another gin across the table. He’s been a fucking pest about refilling my glass repeatedly tonight. I’m drinking it mostly just to shut him up.
It isn’t helping my headache, though. The bass from the club’s speakers pounds through my skull and makes every cell in my body wince.
“I’m not brooding; I’m drinking.” I down half the glass in one swallow. “There’s a difference.”
“Not when you do it.”
The VIP section reeks of the usual mix of nightclub smells: perfume, sweat, smoke, desperation. Below us, bodies writhe on the dance floor like they’re trying to fuck through their clothes.
Usually, I’d be down there, picking my entertainment for the night. Some blonde with daddy issues. A brunette who likes it rough.
Tonight, all I can think of is a pair of amber eyes and dark hair that smells like orchids.
Fuck me.
“You almost told her, didn’t you?” Taras leans back, a cigarette dangling from his lips. His old nervous habit rearing up again. “About our plan for the clinic.”
The gin burns going down on the second sip. “How’d you know?”
“Because you’ve got that look. Like you’re about to do something monumentally stupid for pussy.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?” He laughs, smoke curling between us. “You won’t even execute literal traitors anymore. Devon Manizer is still breathing because his wife went boo-fuckin’-hoo on you.”
“That has nothing to do with—”
“Bullshit. Everything changed when she showed up.” He signals the cocktail waitress for another bottle. “You used to be focused, man. Ruthless. Now, you’re…” He waves his hand vaguely. “This.”
“This?”
“Distracted. Soft. Pussy-whipped.”
My fist connects with the table hard enough to make the glasses jump. “I told you to watch your fucking mouth.”
“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Taras doesn’t even flinch. Twenty years of friendship buys him that privilege. “You were going to tell her about the takeover. Admit it.”
I pour another drink instead of answering. He’s not wrong—I’d been seconds away from confessing everything over that chess game.
How I’ve orchestrated her clinic’s downfall.
How Mikayla has been systematically destroying her from the shadows.
How it was all a rigged carnival game and she was the hapless sucker caught in the middle of it.
… Until I looked at her face and couldn’t do it.
“She’d leave,” Taras says quietly. “You tell her the truth, she’s gone. No baby. No heir. No nothing.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re about to throw away months of planning for a piece of ass.”
“She’s not—” I stop myself. Age-old question: What is she? Not just a piece of ass. Not just a surrogate. Not just anything anymore.
She’s Olivia.
And that’s the fucking problem.
“Where’s Mikayla?” I need to change the subject before I do something stupid. Like go home and tell Olivia everything.
“Sulking at the bar. You two have a fight?”
“Something like that.”
Taras raises an eyebrow but doesn’t push. Smart man.
The music shifts to something slower, dirtier. On the dance floor, couples grind against each other in the strobing lights, happy and oblivious.
“I need some air.”
I lurch up before Taras can lob any unwanted jokes in my direction. Outside, the Boston night hits like a punch to the jaw. Cold. Clean. Nothing like the recycled sweat stench inside.
I light a cigarette, letting the nicotine smooth out the rough edges of my psyche.
“Those things will kill you.”
Mikayla materializes beside me, her silver dress catching the streetlight. She looks good when she’s not in black.
“A lot of things might kill me.” I don’t look at her. “Bullets. Knives. Federal investigations.”
“Olivia Aster is heading for the top of the list.”
Now, I look. “Careful.”
“Am I wrong?” She moves closer, her perfume sharp and pungent. Wrong, though. All wrong. It’s not vanilla and orchids. “You’ve changed since she arrived. The Stefan I knew would never hesitate to execute traitors. Would never let emotions cloud business decisions.”
“The Stefan you knew wasn’t thinking about heirs.”
“Is that what this is about? The baby-to-be?” Her hand touches my chest. “Because if you just need to scratch an itch…”
She presses against me, curves and heat and promise. There for the taking.
But she’s not Olivia.
“No.”
Mikayla freezes. “No?”
“I’m not interested in meaningless distractions anymore.”
She steps back like I’ve slapped her. “I’m meaningless?”
“You’re bored, Mikayla. Looking for drama. Find it somewhere else.”
Her face hardens into something ugly. “She’s really got you wrapped around her finger, doesn’t she? The pure-hearted doctor with her moral superiority and—”
“Stop talking.”
“Or what? You’ll fire me? Kill me?” She laughs, bitter and sharp. “You won’t. Because you’re not that man anymore. She’s defanged you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” She backs toward the club door. “The old Stefan would have fucked me against this wall just to prove a point. This version?” She looks me up and down with disgust. “This version slinks home to play house with his ditzy little girlfriend.”
“Mikayla—”
“Save it.” She yanks the door open. “When she destroys you—and she will—don’t come crying to me.”
The door slams behind her.
I finish my cigarette in silence, watching smoke float into the night sky. Mikayla’s wrong about one thing—Olivia hasn’t defanged me.
She’s done something worse.
She’s made me want to be better.
And for a man like me, that might be the most dangerous thing of all.
I flick the cigarette into the gutter and head back inside. Taras is exactly where I left him, working through the bottle with methodical determination.
“Mikayla just stormed through here like someone pissed on her Louboutins,” he observes. “What’d you do?”
“Turned her down.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Oh?”
“Things change,” I say in answer to the questions he didn’t really ask.
“No shit.” He pours us both another drink. “You know what your problem is?”
“Enlighten me.”
“You’re in love with Olivia.”
I shake my head. “I don’t do love.”
“Neither did your pops.” Taras raises his glass in a mock toast. “Look how that turned out.”
“My father was weak.”
“Your father was a man,” he corrects. He downs his drink and stands up. “And so are you, whether you want to admit it or not.”
He leaves me alone with the bottle and the truth I don’t want to face.
I’ve been telling myself this is about the heir. About legitimacy. About business. But when I close my eyes, I don’t see a surrogate or a business acquisition.
I see a future I can’t stop craving.