9. Adrik
ADRIK
O ne of the bookkeepers, Paul, nodded after I’d pulled him aside. They were freelancers more than anything, but they knew our system.
“I’m telling you, Boss. She’s good .” He moved a toothpick to the other side of his mouth and grinned. “She knows the ins and outs of it all. Keeps me on my toes.” He chuckled. “You really did yourself a favor in hiring her.”
But I didn’t. I thanked him for his input. Because I had to do my due diligence to supervise and monitor the situation of Elena “joining” the team of accountants, I'd asked Paul and the others who worked with her so far what they thought.
I didn’t need to. I was often there, watching what she did.
All of them approved of her. They’d thanked me for having her here. They praised how well she got along with everyone.
“A real sweetheart.” That was what they’d all more or less admitted.
It was painfully clear how much of a people pleaser she was at heart.
Her personality never fluctuated in that regard.
She was steadfast in wanting to do what was expected.
She never turned down a request on a task.
She offered to assist whenever she could.
And she never, ever asked for a single fucking thing.
Even when a guard accidentally spilled something on her keyboard and it started glitching, she tried to work around it and “just make do”.
If Paul hadn’t pointed it out and I’d ordered a replacement, I bet she still would’ve been using the defective one.
I watched her now as she continued cross-referencing spreadsheets. The files pertained to shipments of guns, but she didn’t know that. All she saw were the numbers. All she focused on were the formulas and timelines.
Impressed but wary of letting her con me into trusting her too much, I made sure guards were always there. A tracking program logged and monitored all that she did.
Not once since she’d been here did she make a call, email, or text to her father. No other friends or acquaintances, either. Besides being a people pleaser, she seemed content to be a homebody.
Or maybe she panicked at having to talk to anyone.
The one day that she admitted she’d run out of contacts and had to use her backup glasses—which fuck me, they somehow made her look so scholarly and irresistible—I had to have one of the men order her more to be delivered here, a whole year’s supply.
I leaned against the wall, watching her as she kept working, oblivious to anything else in the room.
Including me. She ran the tip of her tongue over the bottom left side of her plump lips, a tell that showed she was in deep concentration.
She narrowed her eyes as her glasses slipped down her nose, but she was too in the zone to pause and push them back up.
As if on cue, she let out a deep breath and arched her back, like she’d reminded herself to be aware of her posture and to straighten it from the hunch she utilized too much.
I dragged my gaze down her, wishing I could undress her with more than my eyes.
In another simple white blouse that was damnably too thick for me to see much through it but also so plain and unadorned that she gave the impression of being pure and tempting, she heaved out another sigh from the long day.
The extra push of an inhale hit me hard.
Her breasts pushed up and made the fabric strain.
Going lower with my review after being out and about handling business all day, I slowed down to appreciate her short black skirt. Not too tight. Not too flowy. A casual matching piece for her boring top.
Boring?
I bit back a laugh.
Nothing was boring about this gorgeous woman.
I hurried here to catch however much time I could find just to watch her, to be in her presence, and to check on what she was finding. She submitted daily reports to me—factual, thorough, and professional. But I just couldn’t get her out of my mind.
Three weeks had come and gone now, and my father’s slow succumbing path to death was no longer the one and only thing I dwelled on.
Elena hogged my thoughts.
Every night when she’d leave at the end of her “workday” here at the main house, she’d go back to the guest lodging specifically for her. And no matter how much or little time I’d spent near her, she’d linger on my mind. Nothing I did could stop or diminish my curiosity about her.
Jacking off barely took the edge off this attraction.
Watching her in the surveillance feed like a stalker didn’t lessen the draw to her.
If anything, I was only deepening the connection she’d landed in here.
It wasn’t just my reaction to letting her into my life.
It was her affinity for working hard and being a solid asset in a business sense.
The more that she proved she could handle the accounting, the further she was pulled in on more tasks.
It seemed like instinct to involve her with additional complex aspects of the family’s bookkeeping, and she maintained a seemingly endless enthusiasm and energy to do whatever was expected of her.
I recognized that I wanted to spend more time with her, not only under the guise of checking that she wasn’t fucking us or me over.
But also because I was getting addicted to having her near, to learning about her tells and picking up on the quirks of her behavior.
She was a sweetheart.
She acted professionally and politely.
Not a single thing she did or said gave me a clue for why John Morovov would ever let her go.
And it’s insane how no one’s ever claimed her.
“A ha .”
I smiled at her little exclamation. Pushing off the wall, I strode through the otherwise empty room to see what she’d noticed.
“Aha, what?” I asked.
She jumped, startled, turning in her chair that quickly had her glasses falling all the way off her face and landing on the floor.
“Adrik!” She swallowed hard, pressing a hand to her chest. “I mean, Mr. Volkov. You scared me.”
I stifled the urge to laugh. I was scary like this ? Almost smiling and calm?
“So I’m Mr. Volkov again. Yet you call my youngest brother Nikolai?” I asked, trying not to sound like I was teasing her.
As I handed her the glasses, she smiled shyly and awkwardly and lowered her gaze. “Well, he warned me.”
“Warned you?”
“He warned me that if I didn’t call him Nikolai, it’d mean I was naughty.”
You fucking rabid animal. Nothing could stop him from hitting on anything that had a pussy and lived and breathed.
This spike of jealousy that my youngest brother could be aiming to fuck her was ridiculous, though. I still wouldn’t have time for a woman in my life. That hadn’t changed.
Or has it?
“Never mind him,” I said dryly.
“What do you want me to call you?” she asked.
Oh, fuck, sweetheart. You can scream my name when I make you come. You can cry out any goddamn thing that comes to mind when I fuck you. You can beg me for more with formal titles out of your lips and you can whisper my given name like it’s a benediction when I order you to ride me.
I stared at her as the flashing images of all that I wanted to do to her—with her—raced in a hot, torrid, and forbidden loop in my mind.
“Mr. Volkov?” she prompted when I didn’t speak.
“What do you want to call me?” I replied.
“I, uh, well, umm… I should call you whatever is proper.” She turned more to face her computer again, flustered.
Fuck, how you tease me. Seeing her shy and flustered was the hottest part of her doe-eyed innocence.
“Proper?” I snorted.
“Because you’re the boss. And you’re in charge,” she said plainly. “But if it offends you, I’ll call you Adrik.” She lifted her blue gaze to me, and I sucked in a breath at the potent hit of desire that filled me.
“What did you find?” I asked, trying vainly to tamp down this need for her.
“Oh.” She smiled wider now, but still with that sweet-as-hell and sexy-as-fuck vulnerability.
“Nothing. I was wondering why one column wasn’t adding up correctly, and I made the mistake of not scrolling down enough to see that Paul had added more numbers before he left earlier.
” She blushed so prettily. “Sorry. It wasn’t a major mistake. And I caught it.”
“I’m not accusing you of doing anything wrong.” Except driving me insane, wanting you.
She exhaled in relief as she signed out of the system. “Oh. Good.” I gave her space to scoot the chair back, but I didn’t leave her. “I would hate for you to ever think I was doing something wrong. Or letting a mistake happen that could damage something.”
I watched her grab her tote bag. It wasn’t really a purse, and it seemed like she only used her phone to play a word-of-the-day game. She did pack a lunch and bring it, like this was a regular nine-to-five gig. It didn’t seem to cross her mind that we had a chef here.
“Elena.” I waited until she faced me. “You do understand that these accounts represent business matters that aren’t exactly above the law, don’t you?”
She winced. “Please don’t say anything else. I don’t want to know.”
I chuckled as she put her empty tote bag strap on her shoulder. Used to the routine of “walking her home,” I was pleased that she didn’t try to treat this like goodbye yet. “Ignorance is bliss?”
“I hope it can be.” She began to leave the room with me.
“I’m aware that your organization is a criminal one.
But I really, really don’t want to know the details.
I feel intimidated to have the access to the numbers you provide me with.
Millions and millions.” She swallowed and glanced at me.
“Sorry if that makes me sound sheepish or stupid about it. But I… don’t want to know.
Maybe ignorance can be bliss in that regard. ”
When she bumped into the doorframe, likely because she wasn’t looking where she was walking, she gaped in surprise. “Oh, shoot. I forgot my glasses.”
I’d already caught her with the misstep. But I didn’t release her elbow. She’d brushed against me accidentally with this collision at the door. It was an innocent mistake. Unplanned contact.
And it seemed like fate.
Gazing down at her blue eyes that sucked me in every time, I let out a ragged breath. This close, this alone, I forgot all the reasons I was supposed to deny myself.
“What if ignorance isn’t bliss?” I asked, lowering my gaze to her pink lips.
“How so?”
“What if I admitted you’re driving me fucking insane the longer I have you here and don’t know what you taste like?” I cupped her face and stroked my thumb over her lower lip.
She gave me a heavy look with her lids hooded and depriving me of those mesmerizing blue orbs.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Me too. I’m sorry I’ve held out this long.
Because as I closed the distance and pressed my mouth over hers, stealing her gasp of surprise, I felt like the world had stopped moving. Like time stood still. As I brushed my lips over hers and kissed her until she sagged against me, I realized my mistake.
Ignorance was fucking bliss. I reluctantly parted from her at the sound of my cousins and brothers nearby in the house. And now that I knew how sweet she was, I was automatically stuck with the fate of wanting more. Of lusting for more than a kiss.
Maybe I had been better off not knowing.
She’d unleashed a devil of desire in me, one I bet I wouldn’t be able to win against so easily again. Not if I wanted to stay sane.