Chapter 19
LILIANA
The weeks have blurred by since I found out I’m pregnant, but the stress taking over my life never lets up.
It doesn’t get easier with time. Instead, as I notice more and more small changes in my body, I worry about how I’ll be a single mother and keep this new life safe from Sokolov control.
The longer my parents stay away from the bakery, one medical complication after another, the more I dread whether I can keep this place running and someday turn a profit.
No other loan payments are due. And Markus hasn’t been around to harass us about renegotiating the terms. Yet the bottom line is as dismal as ever.
The only way I almost succeed in reducing the fear of the future is by throwing myself into the delivery plans.
Jenni and I work ourselves to the bone getting the service ready.
It’s been slow to take off, but I’m hopeful that in this day and age of everyone expecting the convenience of things being delivered rather than picked up, we can make this last and bring in more money quicker.
I’m wrapping up the last of the cleanup one afternoon, lost in thought, when Rob says someone’s at the door.
I glance up and scowl at Roman standing on the other side of the glass door. I huff out a breath and shake my head.
He doesn’t get the hint, escalating to knocking on the door. Loudly.
“Want me to call the cops or something?” Rob offers.
“No.” Reading the look on his face, I realize Roman won’t give up so easily, so I set the rag on the counter beside the sink and go to the door. I unlock it but leave the chain attached. Through the two-inch gap, I raise my brows.
“You’re not going to let me in?” he demands.
“No. The bakery is closed.”
He narrows his eyes. “You do remember that you owe me money, right?”
I grit my teeth. “The loan is being paid per the terms set forth.”
“Look, I just want to talk.”
I shrug one shoulder. “Then talk.”
“Can’t I come in?”
“You have three seconds to make your point.”
“Fine.” He growls slightly, obviously annoyed I’m not letting him get his way. “I wanted to let you know that you’re still on for our previous commitments.”
What. The. Hell?
At my blank face, he smiles. “Oh, did you forget?”
“That I left you after you cheated on me? No. I haven’t forgotten that at all. That also means any commitment between us is over.” I wonder how many times he’ll need to hear it to get it in his head. I won’t be a backup for him to come to when things fall apart. I won’t be anything for him.
“You’re still listed as my plus-one to the Grayson Ball,” he replies, too smugly for my liking.
I roll my eyes. “I don’t care where my name is listed.” A fundraiser gala is the least of my concerns. “Take Maeve.”
“Your name is the one I provided on the RSVP months ago,” he argues.
“I don’t care.” Just to clarify, I clear my throat and look him dead in the eye. “I am not going to anything with you, ever again. Get lost, and stay out of my life.”
I close the door and lock everything back up.
He doesn’t bang his fists on the window or shout as I turn, but I feel the burn of his pissy stare on my back as I walk away. The urge to laugh hits me, but I catch myself before I show that much. As far as I can tell, I don’t need to deal with him for the loan. Markus is the middleman.
Roman’s visit stirs all my memories of Anton, though, and I hate how much he clogs up my thoughts.
Later, after I close up, I’m distracted as I walk from the bakery, recalling how he looked when he ran after me on the sidewalk.
I’m so lost in thoughts of Anton on the way to Jenni’s apartment that I don’t pay attention to my surroundings—and then he shows up in the flesh.
He rounds the corner of the alley I head down, and when I bring my gaze up and see him, I sigh heavily.
“Not stalking me, huh?” I call out.
“This time,” he says, holding up his hands as he approaches me, “guilty as charged.”
I stop, leaning against the brick wall of a building.
Unlike when Roman showed up earlier, I’m not as intimidated to face off with his father.
A teeny part of me is eager to just tell him the truth, that I’m having his child and there’s nothing he can do about it.
It would be the “right” thing to do. The possessive and predatory glint in his eyes as he steps up close and cages me in against the wall convinces me otherwise.
He’s too in control.
Too commanding.
If he were to know about this baby, he’d try to dictate what should happen.
I don’t run, though, curious now. He’s had me followed, and while that’s an intrusion into my life, it’s remote. Almost as if he’s fine with letting me know he’s watching me because he can.
“And what do you want this time?” I ask, hating how easily this proximity to his hard, hot body can mess with me. I’m not wishing for a door between us like I did with Roman. I’m caught up in a stupid wish that he was wearing fewer layers than the suit that fits him so perfectly.
“This time?” He rakes his greedy gaze over me.
“I’m going to want the same thing every time.
” He sets his hand on the wall, pressing his body nearly flush against mine so I’m pinned between him and the hard brick.
With his free hand, he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“You.” Against my wishes, I’m wet. He’s still the master of my body, still able to turn me on.
From his presence alone and that admission of desire, I’m melting for him.
Heat pools low in my belly, and I swear my nipples are already aching.
Damn you!
I lick my lips and strain to find a comeback. Anything. But with the next inhale I dare to suck in, I’m taunted by his smell. His presence. All of him. Being this close to him is frying my nerves.
“However,” he adds, looking down at me like nothing else in the world exists, “I do want to let you know that you’ll be accompanying me to a fundraising gala.”
I can’t help it. A laugh pushes out of me.
He’s so certain, like stating it will make it so.
And it’s the same thing Roman tried to convince me of earlier, that I’d be obligated to go to this party with him.
“No.” I shake my head, still laughing slightly. “I don’t think so.” Just because he could twist my words, I add, “I know I am most definitely not going to anything of the sort with you.”
As I imagine it, though, showing up with Anton, I want to give in to hysterical laughter at the irony of how I would’ve finally met Anton if I had stayed with Roman and gone with him.
“No, Anton.”
“No?” he challenges, lowering his hand as he erases the gap between us. He’s flush against me, pinning me to the wall. The move is so quick it catches me off guard. His hand slips under my skirt, his hot lips brush over my neck, and I’m too shaken and shocked to react with more than a gasp.
“The last time you seemed to want to tell me no,” he says in a husky whisper as he wastes no time sliding his hand under my skirt, “I wasn’t convinced.”
A strangled grunt escapes me as he pushes his finger into me. Despite how much I know I need to avoid him and resist him, I can’t. My legs part as he forces his knee between them. With his lips hot and wet on my skin, he fingers me with instant familiarity.
Because he knows me. Like this.
Wicked and sinister.
Commanding my pussy to react to his touch.
“Remember?” he taunts as he quickly works me up to the edge of an orgasm.
He sucks on my neck. He strokes through my slick folds, then circles my clit until my hips chase his hand.
And just like that, in the middle of an alley, he’s pushing me too close to coming.
I remember this rush with him. I’ll never forget the thrill of a climax with this man.
“Do you need a reminder of who’s in charge here?” he asks, teasing me as I breathe faster, aching for the relief.
He sucks on my earlobe, hitting that sensitive spot, and I arch my back. “Fuck.”
“I’m in charge, Liliana, and I will always, always…” He drops his mouth to mine, stealing my lips in a deep kiss as I come on his hand. “I will always get what I want.”
I’m stunned by how fast he pulled that from me, overwhelmed and shattered and trembling as pleasure streaks through me. He keeps rubbing me, coaxing me to let him drag out the orgasm. But as he pulls his hand free and licks his fingers, I know what he said isn’t the same as what I know of his son.
Roman has the same attitude. That he can always get what he wants.
Anton isn’t only saying it as a bluff or wishful thinking.
He means it. Because as he continues to clean my arousal off his fingers, he steps back and doesn’t hide the erection tenting his pants.
He wants me, and he’s convinced he’ll have me—even if it’s in chasing the memories of me and coming in his own hand later.
He’s retreating. But only for now.
I step away, shaky on my legs at first. The farther I hurry down the alley without hearing his footsteps behind me, the more I know he’s giving me space to consider what he’s done and said.
He truly plans to have me, and I’ll fight that every step of the way.
Because I’m not only protecting my own freedom anymore. I refuse to let any man control my life through money, fear, or this baby.
Deep in my mind, though, the fear of him seeing my baby as something of his startles me more.
I ignore my previous temptation to tell him about our child.
If he knows, he’ll insist that this baby be his heir. His future. Something else of his to keep and control.
Shaking my head as tears of frustration well in my eyes, I growl and pick up my pace.
No.
I wipe my cheeks.
I’ll be damned if you think about taking my baby from me.
I clear my throat and sniffle, hating how quickly he manipulated me into coming, like he can keep me as his puppet and make me surrender no matter what I want.
“I’m not going to that gala with you,” I whisper hotly.
“And I’m not letting you ever get close enough to know about this baby.”
As my vow hangs in the air, though, I can’t deny that I’ll be running out of time. I’ll start to show soon, and it’s going to be impossible to keep him from the truth.