I assume to kick my ass for calling his wife sweetheart, but learn otherwise when Emerson answers, “Zoya had anappointment with her OBGYN.” She’s telling the truth. It’s just what she’s not saying I pay the most attention to.
“And?”
It takes a beat for her to reply. “And then they came over.” Her eyes flicker as if she is recalling a memory instead of trying to make up one. “We talked, and during that conversation, I realized how much he cares for you. How much they both care about you. So, naturally, they were the first people I sought help from when I needed to find you. Andrik immediately offered to take me anywhere I needed to go…”—her eyes gloss with tears—“as long as I was going to you.”
Andrik’s empathetic side is still foreign, and it leaves me speechless.
As do the words Emerson speaks next. “He will never forget how you helped him when you were a child, Mikhail. And how you placed your life on the line for his wife and unborn child.” She circles the bullet wounds in my stomach, accessories I never had when we dated, before her focus shifts to an area rapidly gaining its own pulse. “And neither will I. You make me burn, Coal. You are the reason I exist.” I can’t think of anything but her mouth on me,anywhere, when she circles her hand around my shaft and jerks it a handful of times. “So can we please stop focusing on everyone else and for once focus on us?”
“Christ,” I bite out when her tongue treks across the slit in the crown of my cock a second after I dip my chin.
Chapter 35
Emerson
My smile bounces off my phone screen when my aunt Marcelle fans her cheeks. Her cheeks are the color of beets, and her eyes are dilated. Anyone would swear I shared in explicit detail how amazing the past few days have been. I only gave her a basic bullet-point rundown.
Alas, I guess a person without a sex life would be intrigued by the most mundane story.
Fortunately for Aunt Marcelle, my sex life isn’t close to boring—anymore.
Excluding the slight hiccup during our first night at Mikhail’s penthouse, the past few days have been magical. The reimagination of our relationship is a masterpiece, and I can’t wait to share it with a broader audience.
Though I’ll never get the chance if I don’t get a wiggle on. I’m meant to be hunting down the dress Mikhail spent a fortune on, not steaming up my aunt’s reading glasses like her raunchy romance novels usually do.
“If I don’t hear from you before next Sunday, I will see you some time that afternoon.” Mikhail wants to be in attendance when the electrostatic precipitator is installed at my mother’spub, and I want to be there too. It is exciting wondering how fiery the flames will become when we return to the place that sparked them. Ember’s is a replica of my family’s pub, but nothing ever compares to the real thing.
I startle when a voice from behind asks, “Any luck yet?”
Twisting to face Loretta, I shake my head. Kolya, understandably, assumed my walk out days ago was the end of my relationship with Mikhail and Mikhail’s bid for his inheritance. He had the staff pack my belongings and store them in the attic. The sixteen-thousand-dollar gala dress I’m planning to refund was packed with my one lousy backpack.
As beautiful as the dress is, with the electrostatic precipitator being installed next weekend, and my earnings and tips this week not taking me close to half its purchase price, I must be cautious with spending on Mikhail’s behalf.
It is easy to be overgenerous when you think you’re about to inherit five hundred million dollars.
“Not yet,” I answer, drawing Loretta further into the dark. “Are you sure this is where he placed my belongings?” Under the assumption his contract was over, Kolya returned to Moscow three days ago. The house staff has been in disarray ever since. Kolya is stern. He runs a tight ship. I don’t see Zelenolsk Manor maintaining its pristine condition without him.
“That is where Kolya told Charles to place your belongings. It should be there.” Loretta rummages through a handful of dusty boxes before sneezing. “Perhaps I should call Kolya and ask him?”
“No,” I shout, a little too loudly. I startle Loretta. “It has to be here somewhere.”
I grunt in frustration not even five minutes later. The dress bag is nowhere to be found, and my allergies will give me grief for a month if I don’t leave the attic immediately.
Seconds after leaving the attic, I brush dust and cobwebs out of my hair and off my sweater and jeans before assisting Loretta in doing the same. She’s not wearing jeans, but it is harder to tell which silver strands on her head are cobwebs and which are gray hairs.
“If you come across it, can you please call me?”
When she nods, I recite my cell phone number before thanking her for her help with a smile. I may not have gotten what I came here for, but Loretta has been nothing but kind to me.
As my feet tap the pristine floorboards on the grand staircase, my phone rings. I smile while staring at the image flashing across the screen. Mikhail’s eyes are brimming with lust, but he looks content. Almost at peace.
That’s why I’ve kept quiet on Andrik’s secret for the past week. Mikhail is almost ready to handle the fallout of my confession, but he isn’t there just yet. His ego is still frail from the years of torment and abuse he endured after we broke up, and I need it at its full strength before going at it with a sledgehammer.
After taking a moment to admire Mikhail’s delectable features, I slide my thumb across the phone screen and press it to my ear. “Miss me already?”
Lynx rostered me off today because some of the other bartenders were getting crabby about the slimness of their tips on the nights Mikhail and I work together. Mikhail would have had something to say about it if I had told him. Instead, I made out I had stomach cramps and would rather spend my night in bed, recovering.
Mikhail looked set to join me until I dry heaved.
