Chapter 35 Ransome
RANSOME
“Dear,” Jenica says warningly.
But I barely fucking hear her.
Because there’s a man at the bar with Amara, and he’s smiling at her.
He is dead. So fucking dead.
I stand from the table and yank my arm out of Jenica’s grip. Whispers lift, but I don’t care about whatever gossip this is going to start. All I care about is ending whatever the hell is going on over there, where the woman I actually care about is.
“Sit back down, darling.” Jenica tugs on my sleeve and gives me the tightest smile her Botoxed face is capable of. “Now is not the time to—”
I ignore her and stride towards the bar.
“Mr. Rozanov.” The man in the cheap blue suit stands, straightening up his jacket. “It’s an honor to—”
“Beat it,” I snarl at him. “Now.”
He hesitates for a second—which tells me he’s not one of mine, because my people know never to make me wait—and then hastily grabs his drink and disappears.
Good riddance.
I take his seat and bark “An old fashioned and a gin and tonic” at the bartender, who quickly gets to work making them.
The second he’s gone, I speak. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
I’m not looking at Amara. I’m not so stupid as to make it that obvious what I’m here for. Plausible deniability is everything in my world. If I say I’m here to grab drinks for me and my wife, then those are the facts. End of story.
“Having a drink,” she answers without looking at me.
“You know what I’m talking about,” I snap under my breath. But when I let my eyes slice over to hers, Amara sips daintily on whatever green, salted rim concoction she ordered.
She’s playing dumb. And I’m not in the mood to play games at all, dumb or otherwise.
“I don’t believe I do.”
I bite my lips, because it’s the only thing I can do that won’t make me look like a monster right now. The worst part about it is she knows that. She knows damn well I have to remain calm. She also knows I am feeling anything but.
“You let another man buy you a drink,” I hiss. “In front of me.”
“And you let another woman kiss you,” Amara counters. “In front of me.”
After a long, stubborn moment, our eyes meet.
But it’s brief. “She’s my wife,” I say under my breath as the bartender sets the drinks down in front of me.
“And what am I?” Amara asks, turning to face me. She doesn’t even bother to be discreet about it. But honestly, I don’t really care right now. It’s not as if we aren’t allowed to speak.
As soon as our eyes lock, as I get a full frame of her heart-shaped face, her honey-colored eyes, her dark hair that’s straight and tucked behind her ears, her plum-colored lips.
I want to grab her. I want to pop her up the bar, spread her legs, and show her and the entire goddamned room just what she is.
Who she is.
Who she belongs to.
Obviously, I can’t do that. At least not now.
Instead, I flag down the bartender. “Add another shot of bourbon to this,” I say, pointing at my old fashioned.
He looks down at it and then back up at me. “It’s already a double, sir.”
I stare at him with enough heat to melt the metal in his nose ring. I get that he’s a bartender, but this isn’t exactly a dive bar. I set a mental reminder to fire whoever fired him. Not so much for the nose ring but because he’s questioning my drink order.
“I’m aware,” I growl.
“Right. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” he stutters as he grabs the bottle and adds a five-second pour, which is over a shot. Smart man.
While I tip the glass to my lips, Amara pipes up again. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“You know that I can’t answer that.”
Half a second later, Jenica is standing at my side, squeezing her way between Amara and me.
“Can’t answer what question?” she asks with a smile that could kill.
“I was just boring him with work details,” Amara says, and Jenica looks at her. They’re both smiling. Both glaring. It’s a regular stand-off, and it’s also getting way too hot in here for my taste.
Finally, Jenica drags her eyes back to me.
“Ransome, darling, what is keeping you? I’ve been waiting for my drink.” She makes a point of looking over at Amara as she asks the question.
“They made my drink wrong and I had to order another,” I lie. Well, it’s not entirely a lie. He did make it right, but once I got up here, I needed more.
“Well, it looks like the mistake has been fixed.” She snakes an arm around my waist, putting even more distance between me and Amara. “We can go back to the party now. Where we belong.”
My jaw clenches as the air between the three of us grows thicker. But Amara stands up, fake margarita in hand, and smiles at us. It’s painful how well she’s hiding her true emotions. Because I know her. Inside, she is doing anything but smiling.
“Enjoy the party,” she says.
“Where are you going?” I demand.
Jenica’s eyebrows perk in surprise. I know I’m going to get an earful later, but I don’t give a shit.
“A walk,” she answers. “The further along I get, the harder it is to sit still.”
“You do look like you’re about to pop,” Jenica says. “And I’m sure it’s good to exercise. I can only imagine how hard it will be to lose the baby weight.”
I half-expect Amara to snap at her. Hell, with her spicy track record, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amara slapped her.
But instead, her face lights up in surprise.
“Oh! He kicked,” she says as she places a hand on her belly. Jenica’s entire expression drops, and Amara’s grin widens. “It’s the wildest thing, feeling someone’s baby grow inside you. There’s really nothing like it.”
With that, she holds her glass up in a cheers motion and walks off, leaving me alone with the last woman I want to be alone with. It’s a graceful, well-played slap on both our faces, and I don’t know whether to be angry or impressed.
Of course, Jenica is angry enough for both of us.
My jaw clamps down as I watch her walk away. For all of two seconds, I forget that Jenica is standing there.
But the luxury of that ignorance only lasts until she starts talking again.
“Disgusting,” she mutters.
“Completely,” I say, and she turns to me.
“So you agree?”
“I agree that your behavior was disgusting, yes.”
Her mouth pops open. “I was talking about her! How dare she show up here?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, she works for me.”
“How could I forget? You never take your eyes off her. The nerve of that hussy coming in here looking like that,” she spits.
She’s lucky she’s a woman. Unfortunately for me, even being raised Bratva we have a strict no-hitting-women policy. If anyone with a dick called Amara that, things would be different right now.
“Looking like what?” I ask. “You’re wearing the same dress.”
Flames brim her gaze in an attempt to incinerate me. “Pregnant. She’s pregnant and parading it around!”
“With my child,” I say loudly enough to piss her off.
Jenica shakes her head slowly in disbelief. “You really don’t care, do you?”
“What I don’t care for is how you treat her,” I tell her.
“And how do you want me to treat her?” she snaps. “You want us to be best of friends? Because that’s not going to fucking happen.”
“What I want,” I snap back, “is for you to stop putting everything on her. You may be my wife, but she is the mother of my child. And the way you are acting is no better for the image of our relationship than people seeing me with her.”
“I don’t understand how you could possibly compare the two of us. She isn’t one of us. And no amount of money or hand-delivered coffees will change that. She’s a different breed, Ransome.”
“You’re right,” I tell her. “You’re not the same at all.”
I’m done talking. I’m done with all of this.
But just as I start to walk away, Jenica puts her hand on my arm, though it isn’t an intimate gesture. It’s a warning.
“Don’t forget that as soon as that baby comes, she’ll be gone. But we will still be married.”