6. Artem
Artem
The clapping is delayed, but soon the entire ballroom is congratulating us on the engagement. I know much of it is obligatory; I’m sure once the event is over everyone will be gossiping and wondering if this is real, or if it’s unfavorable for the Families.
Giselle hasn’t moved a muscle, standing nervously beside me just waiting until she can crawl into a hole. Obviously neither of us want this, but only I know how different our reasons for that are.
The excitement dies down, and I take her hand as I lead her back down the side of the room to find the table my brothers are sitting at, happy to see Andrei there. He’s my dad’s childhood friend, and he’s like a second father to me. Well, a more laid-back version anyway.
“Artem, congratulations,” he says, going in to hug me.
I give him a grin as we pull back, and he turns to Giselle. “And you’re Marcos’s daughter? Beautiful,” he says as he takes her hand and kisses it. He sees the look on my face and laughs, “Ever the possessive one, just like your father,”
Giselle awkwardly goes to sit at the table, muttering a greeting to Andrei’s second daughter, Lyra.
“So, the old man went back already I take it?”
I nod, and he shrugs his shoulders.
“More fun for us, right?” We both chuckle, and he pats my back before continuing. “You know Artem, I always did want you to marry Lyra, but I guess I can’t argue with your taste in women,”
“Watch it, Andrei,” I warn, and my eyes land back to her. She seems to be chatting well with Lyra, even laughing a bit.
“Honestly, Artem, she seems like a good match from what I heard from Maxim.”
I scoff when he mentions that. I don’t even want to know what Max is telling people. We both join the table, and I sit on the other side of Giselle, who doesn’t even turn to look as she continues talking to Lyra.
“Well maybe you should try to be a little bolder. I mean I can introduce you to some guys, or even my brother—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I say through my teeth as I squeeze her knee.
“Are you trying to pawn off my friend’s daughter?”
“No, but Lyra wants a boyfriend and she can only date someone in one of the Families, and I know some decent guys,” Giselle says, shrugging her shoulders.
“Oh, do you? And how many decent guys do you know here?” I’m sure she sees the immediate look of distaste on my face because she shoots me a smug smile before she replies.
“I know a few.”
My jaw clenches as she defiantly looks at me like that, basically daring me to get pissed and lose it in front of everyone at the table. “Like who?”
“Hmm let me see,” she says while tapping her chin. “Well there’s my brother, of course,” she says looking at me, and I nod, the glare in my eyes daring her back to continue. “Then there’s Bruno, and Jonathon, oh and then Angelo, almost forgot,” she finishes with a fake innocent smile.
Before I could find out if looks can kill, Lyra speaks up softly.
“Um well, I guess it can be anyone if they’re nice. I don’t really know what kind of guy I’d like.”
I shake my head, reaching for the glass of water on the table. “Lyra, you’re not dating, fucking, or marrying anyone Giselle suggests.”
Lyra blushes and nods, “Oh uh, of course not I just—”
“What the fuck? Why not?”
“Because, if Lyra doesn’t end up with one of my brothers, she will still be marrying into one of the Russian Families.” I see Giselle’s eyes flaming, and Lyra is flustered trying to reassure her that it’s okay.
“You know, you prick, you’re not better than me just because you don’t like Italians, and Lyra doesn’t have to answer to you.”
“Yes, she does. So does her father, so does everyone else at this table, and every other fucking Russian family you see here. And now, so do you.”
She stands up, her chair loudly screeching against the slick floor, causing some heads to turn. I see her hesitate with all the eyes on her, and for a moment she calms herself, and sits back down. I shoot her a smug look as she sits back down, and she kicks me with her heel.
“Behave, solnishko,” I say between my closed teeth, overcoming the pain.
“I told you to stop calling me rude shit in Russian.”
Lyra makes a confused face, and then looks at me. I just shake my head, not wanting her to correct it. She doesn’t need to know what the pet name I’ve given her really means.
The air in the car is charged, and I can feel the anger radiating off of her. I don’t really care for her bratty tantrums, and I fucking refuse to entertain it.
I have no idea how I’m going to be able to handle living with this woman, when seeing her once a week is already a handful.
I turn my back, and she’s trying to meddle in Lyra’s life without thinking of consequences.
And more importantly, how she continues to openly defy and question me in front of others.
She makes everything more difficult than it needs to be.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she says candidly with her arms crossed.
I don’t answer, still reeling in my head over how the fuck I’m going to tame this crazy woman beside me before she does something stupid and gets herself killed one day.
“Oh, I know what it is; you’re brooding because I got the last word in front of your family? Who cares, they don’t seem to mind. Actually, they seemed pretty entertained.”
Her words buzz through my mind again: “I know some decent guys.” As if she has any fucking idea. My grip on the wheel tightens, and the leather groans under the pressure.
“God, you are so predictable. If you have something to say just say it already.”
“You don’t get it, and you never will, because you’re so damn naive and headstrong.”
She scoffs, her hands quickly unwrapping from their position crossed over her chest.
“Why? Because I think Lyra deserves to find love? What is it, Artem? You’ll never find love, so everyone else has to suffer along with you?”
I suddenly hit the brakes, and the car swerves, pulling over with much more force than necessary. She jolts forward before catching herself against the dash and whips her head to me in anger.
“What the fuck? Are you out of your mind?”
“Get out of the car.”
“What? Fuck no, you’re not kicking me out.”
I roll my eyes and take off my seatbelt, looking at her. “I didn’t say I wasn’t taking you back, I said, get the fuck out of the car. Now.”
She must see the dark expression over my face, so she huffs dramatically before undoing her seatbelt and stepping outside, as I do the same.
She stands by the open passenger door, our eyes meeting from across the hood as we both stand at our respective sides.
“I’m out. Now what?” she says sarcastically, and I squeeze my fingers to my palm trying to contain myself.
“Now, you’re going to learn another lesson.”
I storm around the front of the car, but she quickly moves backward, and we go around once before we both stop on opposite sides again.
“What the hell are you talking about, you psycho?”
“Giselle, make this harder than it needs to be and so help me God you won’t sit for fucking days.”
Her eyes widen, and I know her sick mind is racing with ideas.
“That is not ever happening again, you perverted fuck!”
I can’t help the smirk on my face when she brings up the last time I was able to punish her. Although that was because she lost terribly at a high-stakes poker game at one of the events a couple years ago, I had put the years of utter rage into it.
But she isn’t mad about the spanking.
No.
She’s mad because I took her soaking wet panties off and kept them as a souvenir of how fucking well she listened for the first time in her life.
“You’re going to be my wife in a week, solnishko,” I say, stalking slowly around the car, as she slowly walks further the opposite way.
“You’ll be in my house, with my family, under my rules,” I continue as we continue our slow game of tag around the car, the tension rising with every step.
“I don’t know what your father let you get away with, but I won’t fucking have this attitude. The brat act stops now.”
I can see the color drain from her face, as she realizes this is not our game we typically play.
“So you’ll stop fucking testing me, stop questioning every single thing I say in front of others,” I say as I resume my stalking around the car, faster this time, “and just maybe, I’ll let you live.”
With my final word I quicken my pace, causing her to stumble in her heels on the grass field I pulled over from the highway in. She tries to get up, but I pin her legs down with my knees, and keep her wrists together behind her back as she lays face down on the grass.
“Get off me!” She struggles, and I chuckle darkly.
“You only have the upper hand when you play unfair, solnishko,” I use my free hand to lightly trace her jaw, my fingers softly going through the strands of her hair until I get a good grip from the base and pull her head back toward me.
I lean forward to whisper in her ear, “But I can best you with only half my strength. Even someone as stubborn as you is aware of that, right?”
She defiantly keeps her mouth closed, and I grip her hair tighter until her lips part.
“Tell me you understand.”
“Fine!”
I lean back to her ear. “Good girl,” I rasp, letting go of my grip in her hair.
“Are you done with your power play now?” she asks defeatedly, laying on her cheek.
“No, I’m not. Unless you’ll willingly agree that you’ll stop acting up in front of others.” My fingers trace lightly down her exposed back, slowly making its descent to her perfect ass before I give a harsh squeeze, and she yelps.
“Fine asshole! No one but you and our siblings. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Happy?”
I hum, releasing her wrists and standing. She sits up from the grass, and when I extend my hand to help her up, she glares at me and does it herself. I watch as she huffs and wipes the grass off her dress, holding back all the comments I want to make about her flushed cheeks.
We quietly get back in the car, and I’m beyond satisfied by her submission, however fleeting it was. I know she’ll break, and I’ll have fun reminding her of it again.
“You know Lyra likes your brother, right?” she says softly, looking out of her window to avoid me.
“Which one? Roman?”
She nods, and I press on the gas to get us back on the highway.
“Well, if Roman is willing to have her, then he’s free to. I’m sure he wants to, because that would put him at the head of the Ivanov family.”
She doesn’t answer, but I can just feel her itching to say something. I don’t know why it bothers me so damn badly that she’s staying quiet.
“Speak. I would never silence you when we’re alone.”
She gives a soft sigh before finally speaking. “Lyra seems sweet, she shouldn’t be forced into a loveless marriage to benefit your selfish family.”
I chuckle at her words as I switch gear as we get off of the highway. “Lyra grew up with us; even if Roman didn’t love her romantically, he’d still care for her as family. She’d be lucky to be with someone as collected and gentle as him anyway.”
She sighs. “Men are just stupid. Roman can’t love a sweet, drop-dead gorgeous girl who likes him so much? How stupid would that be, to have everything someone would dream of, when she’s so willing and then just ignore her.”
It is stupid. I know it is, because I have to share a bed with this woman for the rest of my life while pretending to ignore her.
“It’s safer to not love your wife than to love her.”
“That’s about the dumbest shit you’ve ever said,” she deadpans, facing me.
“This is what I mean, Giselle. You claim you could’ve been the head, but you don’t understand what it means to love someone?
To let your enemies know how badly you care for someone?
To dangle your greatest weakness around like a treat?
Because they know that if they want to hurt you, all they have to do is get to her, because that hurts more.
It’s a fucking casualty. I’m saving her. ”
She’s dead silent after my ramble, and I wish I could take it all back. The last thing I ever want is to lower my guard down and let her in too much like this. If she thinks she understands the way I think, then she’ll start to think I’m worth something.
“Is that why you agreed to marry me?” she asks so genuinely, I almost can’t recognize her. I can’t stand being in her presence so casually, so openly without our guarded tension. If we lose our hate, then I’m going to crumble.
“I didn’t have a choice. Saying no would keep me from becoming pakhan.”
The unreadable expression she had a moment ago drifted away, back to neutrality.
I didn’t lie about why I agreed; but the truth is that is also something I’ve considered.
She doesn’t realize just how big of a target she will be by marrying me, though.
I can’t show affection to her, I can’t let her inside my head and let myself lose my grip on reality again.
If she realizes how much of what I’ve done these last nine years has saved her . . .
No. I won’t let her. Because the moment she stops hating me, she’ll be signing her own death certificate.
I feel relieved when we finally arrive back in front of her hotel, and I put the car in park by the curb.
“If you ever do what you did again today while driving, I won’t get in your car again,” she huffs as she collects her purse from the floor by her feet.
“What? Furious is fine, but nothing fast?” I try to joke but she looks back up at me with a serious expression as she undoes her seatbelt.
“No, you fucking idiot. You know my mother died in a car accident, so get your head out of your ass and be more considerate.” She gets out of the car before I can muster a reply, slamming my door once again.
Well, that was strange. Car crash? Why would she say that?
Either way, it wasn’t intentional, but it’s probably for the best that she leaves on that note. If I was a good man, I’d run after her and apologize. I’d promise her that I’d never do it again, and then toss her on the bed to show her how sorry I am for scaring her.
But I’m a bad man, and she has to let me stay that way.