Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Lily
My body was completely relaxed and spent in the front seat of Daniil’s car, but my brain wasn’t. It was going a million miles an hour with a whirl of memories and feelings that I couldn’t get a handle on.
The slow moving New York traffic wasn’t helping either. I wanted to be home so I could shower and block myself away in my room. I needed to try and take stock of what I was feeling, and that was impossible with Daniil’s hand on my knee and his cum staining my panties.
“You’re very quiet,” he murmured, and I didn’t need to turn my head to know he had turned his head to stare at me in the deep confines of the car. I stared stonily ahead. His sigh echoed around the dark interior. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Lily.”
Only I didn’t want to. I couldn’t even make sense of my own thoughts, and here he was demanding I tell him them anyway.
I had always ignored the office rumors that said he was involved in organised crime.
To me it was just too far-fetched. Bratva and mafia were just words that were thrown around, but tonight?
Tonight, I saw a totally different side of him.
He had turned from a domineering, extremely arrogant man who was used to getting his way into someone I didn’t recognize.
Daniil had hurt Greg, and he might have done worse.
Instead of standing my ground and demanding answers, I succumbed to his skillful hands. Again.
The thought made me feel dirty. I was meant to love Greg.
Yes, what he did and said was unforgivable, and our relationship was pretty much over, but that didn’t mean I wanted him dead. Even people as clever as Greg were still human and they made mistakes. That’s what being human was.
But right now, I was beginning to think that Daniil wasn’t human at all. The sound of his fist hitting Greg’s face filled my brain. I’d only seen the first few seconds, and that was more than enough.
And I had still slept with him. I had still allowed him access to my body. I tried to move my leg away, and Daniil’s hand tightened and forced me to stay still.
“You’re angry.”
Pursing my lips, I stared out of the window.
“Lily,” he said again, more forcefully, when I didn’t turn to him. He swerved the car to the curb, to a barrage of horns and angry shouts.
“Lily, look at me.”
Slowly, I turned. “What?”
“You were fine back there.” He searched my face in the dark, and I saw his eyebrows shoot down to make his eyes hooded. “What’s changed?”
“Surely that should be obvious,” I snapped. “You hurt him.”
His grip on my knee tightened. “I thought we had discussed that.”
I couldn’t help it. I rolled my eyes.
Leaning over the center console, he gripped my chin with his fingers. “Don’t do that. Don’t roll your eyes at me. You do it again, and I’ll take you over my knee. It seems the only way to get any sort of obedience out of you.”
I glared at him. “I am not a dog that you can train Daniil. I am a person. Greg is a person. And I wasnt ok with it. You just—”
I shivered as his fingers crept up under my dress and began to massage my inner thigh. Swatting his hand away, I moved as far away from him as I could get.
“You need to stop doing that. You can’t change the subject with sex all the time.”
Cocking his head to the side, he studied me. “Can’t I? Because from where I am sitting, it’s the perfect way to get your mind back on what’s important.”
“And what’s that, Daniil?”
“Me,” he said simply, a smirk spreading across his face.
“You’re insufferable, Daniil. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you.”
Sliding his hand under my hair, he yanked me towards him, leaning his forehead against mine so every breath he took blew across my face.
“It doesn’t right now, but your life should. I am paying you well for your company and for your compliance. Well, I’m paying for your ex anyway. I doubt you will see a cent of the money I have sent him.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I remained silent.
“I didn’t kill him,” Daniil said softly, almost like my silence was too much for him to bear.” I wanted to, seeing him with his hands around your throat made me want to rip him apart, but I didn’t.”
“Why?”
It was Daniil’s turn to stay silent. He quickly looked away and then back again. Me, he hadn’t killed Greg because of me and how it would make me feel.
“Thank you.” I covered his hand with mine.
“Don’t thank me yet, Lily. I still might go and kill him. Every time I see his fingerprints around your throat, I am tempted to, and then there’s the fact that he threatened me.” Steadily, he stared at me. “I can’t let a nobody like him threaten me, even if he is harmless.”
“Wait? He threatened you?”
"He threatened you as well, but yes. Your darling fiancé threatened to ruin both of us. They are idle threats, and I am more than capable of looking after myself, but you? I won’t take any risks with you. So from now on, you don’t do anything or go anywhere without security with you.”
“Ok.”
“Ok?” he looked shocked, his eyes widening. “Did you just agree with me without argument?”
I shrugged, not liking the teasing in his voice. “I don’t think Greg will hurt me.”
Daniel’s eyes flashed. “He already did.”
Ignoring him I shook my head. “He’s not usually violent, but he is still dangerous.”
Daniil stared at me blankly, and then he chuckled.
“I mean it. He’s a genius.”
That forced his laughter to stop. His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s a tech genius. He’s been hacking for years. How do you think he got into such a prestigious school? He hacked—”
“I have the best minds in the business running my cybersecurity, Lily. He won’t be able to ruin me like that. And if he comes after people I care about, I will end him.”
Exasperated, I blew a raspberry. He was underestimating Greg, and that was dangerous. I had seen with my own eyes how quickly he could get through the best cybersecurity.
“Don’t worry,” he patted my knee.
I slapped his hand away, crossing my arms over my chest. “You’re not listening to me, he will.”
Again, he cut me off. “I will look into it, but I don’t think Greg will be any serious threat. Now, shall we go home?”
“Yes, I’m exhausted. I would like to go to bed.”
Daniil’s eyes glittered. “I can’t think of anything better,” He grinned
God, why was he so impossible? “I would like to go to bed alone, Daniil. I am tired.”
He didn’t answer me. He just chuckled and pulled back into traffic.
“Is everything ok?”
I swept past Daniil, who opened the door for me like the gentleman he pretended he was, and was met with Anya sitting in the middle of the foyer in her chair, wearing a concerned look on her face. Her eyes darted between the two of us.
Her shoulders slumped. “What did he do this time?” she aimed her question at me.
Shrugging out of my coat, I folded it across my arms and turned to glare at him. But I wasn’t about to go over this again, no matter who asked me. Huffing, I stormed towards the stairs.
“Lily,” Anya called out after me.
“Leave it, Anya,” Daniil grumbled. “She’s just in a mood because I gave her piece of shit fiancé the beating he deserved.”
I froze halfway up the stairs. That wasn’t it at all.
Well, it wasn’t the entire reason anyway.
The urge to kick off my stilettos and throw one at his head was so overwhelming, I almost did it.
I had one in my hand before I knew what I was doing.
Staring down the stairs, I met Daniil’s eyes.
He arched his eyebrow, almost daring me to throw it.
He wanted me to lose my temper. It would give him a reason to punish me, and I already knew that I liked that too much to happen. Mumbling under my breath, I lowered my arm and stomped up the stairs.
“You beat her ex?” I heard Anya say in a shocked voice.
In my mind’s eye, I could almost see him shrug. Because to Daniel, random violence was nothing at all. “He had her pinned in the bathroom. Those marks around her throat are his fingertips. He had his other hand under her fucking skirt. So, yes, I hurt him. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”
Anya’s laughter floated up. “Don’t you dare say you don’t care for her, Daniil,” she whispered, but somehow the sound carried. “Don’t you dare.”
I fled before I could hear anything else, retreating to the safety of my own room.
I didn’t bother with the lock because I knew that if Daniil wanted in, then nothing would stop him.
Stripping my clothes off, I left them in a pile on the bedroom floor and turned the shower on so hot that it peppered my skin with balls of fire.
I washed quickly just in case he came in.
But he didn’t. I managed to shower in peace and crawl into bed, but it didn’t matter how exhausted I was. Sleep wouldn’t come.
My mind and feelings seemed to be at war with each other. I had loved Greg. I still cared about him, but I was beginning to realize I didn’t know him at all. I didn’t know Daniil either. He was an enigma. More than my boss, more than a lover as well.
He was a man who expected me to give myself over to him completely, and I didn’t know if I could. Anya might even be right. Daniil might have feelings for me, but that didn’t help me in the slightest because I didn’t know how I felt about him.
Yanking up the covers, I clutched a pillow to my chest and buried my face into it, sobbing silently.
I honestly didn’t know how much more I could take. It felt like being with Daniil was consuming me, turning me into a different person.
And I wasn’t sure I liked myself anymore.