“Go home, Mikhail.” I twist to face him, stupidly desperate to see his eyes before finalizing my reply. “Go back to your wife and unborn child.”
He recoils as if I sucker punched him, and then the most panty-wetting grin crosses his face. “Do you mean my sister and unborn niece?”
He homes in closer, like he’s forgotten about the shotgun we keep behind the bar and how I can’t absorb anything when his cologne lingers in my nostrils.
Did he say sister and unborn niece?
“Stands about yay high”—he fans his hand across his nipple—“blonde hair, blue eyes?”
I’m tired. I get snappy when tired. “Are you still describing yourapparentsister?” I air quote apparent because Mikhail has no sisters. His brothers are endless, but there’s been no mention of a living sister, much less one old enough to have boobs bigger than mine. “Or one of themanywomen you’ve been photographed with over the past ten years?”
He smirks, and I grunt, hating that he can still make me jealous after all this time.
Refusing to let him see that he’s upset me, I recommence walking. “Go home, Mikhail. I don’t care who it is to, as long as it’s far from here.”
“I’ll leave…”—he delays long enough for my stomach to gurgle—“when you agree to come with me.”
I wiggle my finger in my ear, certain I am going deaf. When it rewards me with nothing but a sore ear, I crank my neck back. Mikhail is standing in a kitchen that hasn’t been used in years, smirking like he has the entire world at his feet.
I have news for him.
“And why would I do that?” I steal his chance to reply. “I have a life here. Family. My husband might also be opposed to the idea of me going home with an old flame.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
The last guy I went home with still lived with his ex-wifeanddrove her minivan.
That was a shameful three years ago.
Upon spotting my disgusted expression, Mikhail laughs, grating my last nerve.
“Why is it so hard for you to believe that I’ve moved on?”
His eyes flash, pleased that he forced me to react. “It isn’t that I don’t believe you, Emmy?—”
“Don’t call me that.”
He acts as if I never interrupted him. “It is the fact his”—he nudges his head to Abram—“eyes haven’t been gouged that calls you out as a liar.” Again, he steps closer, killing both my sinuses and my senses. “It doesn’t matter how fancy the packaging is. If it is taken, you’d never look or let them look.” A flare of jealousy darts through his eyes as he mutters, “He’s been ogling your ass all night. If you were married, which I sure as fuck know you’re not, he’d be bleeding from his sockets, because when EmersonMorozov’s goods are claimed, only the man she let claim them is permitted to gawk.”
Every word he speaks is true, but I act ignorant. “Abram is?—”
“A douche.” His smile… Kill. Me. Now. “I know.”
Mikhail’s expressions are simple to decipher. It is merely the chaos associated with them I struggle to understand. He looks like he hates me and loves me at the same time—like I’m the one who broke his heart.
My pulse throbs for an entirely different reason when Mikhail says, “He’s also a thief.”
He sinks back enough to expose Abram slipping a wad of cash out of his pocket and placing it into a backpack under the bar. It isn’t the one we use to do a once-a-day bank deposit. It is the backpack he arrives with for each shift.
The puzzle pieces are already slotting together, but Mikhail gives them a gentle nudge. “Let me guess, you’re not making enough to cover expenses on the nights he’s rostered on?”
I nod, too shocked to speak.
Mikhail smiles, appreciative of my temporary wave of the white flag. “Because he’s taking a fifty percent cut on all takingsanda paycheck. Watch.”
Seconds later, a regular walks in, orders a bourbon, and slaps down a twenty. He’s given his change with his drink, but the twenty never makes it into the cash register. It falls into Abram’s pocket before he replaces it with a lower denomination. His cut is far more than the tips some patrons leave, and it doesn’t get close to the tip jar.
I usually avoid confrontations, but this thief needs to be taught a lesson.
