Page 15 of Broken Vows (Marital Privileges #4)

Mikhail

H eaven has no rage like love turned to hatred.

Emerson’s glare as she crosses the formal dining room gives that quote meaning.

She’s dressed in more clothing than she wore hours ago—if you class a mini skirt, dangerously high stilettoes, and a fitted sleeveless lace shirt as clothing.

Her makeup is light, and she has released and brushed her hair, removing the knots my tight grip caused.

She’s undeniably beautiful… and scowling furiously enough for me to keep that to myself.

I’m a fucking soft cock.

I was when I walked away like I hadn’t recently flooded her throat with my sperm, and I am now when I pretend to peruse the menu the chef prepares each morning instead of admiring how smoking hot my wife looks in her little red outfit.

Emerson has a decade more on the clock than the women I had Kolya remove from the premises, rejecting their offers to take care of the bulge that refused to settle even after I learned I was being led by my dick, but she is a trillion times more stunning.

I know that.

Emerson knows that.

And so the fuck does every pair of male eyes stalking her arrival.

I stop collecting names when a deep voice on my right says, “Please, allow me.”

A server dressed in black slacks and a white button-up shirt rushes over to pull out Emerson’s chair. He blushes when she rewards his chivalry with a smile, like he’s unaccustomed to praise.

That isn’t surprising. My grandfather was a tyrant. He never gave praise, not even to the people who shared his blood.

The reminder would usually see me pulling on the reins, but the server’s reaction to Emerson’s racy little number is as readable as the flight deck crew member’s interest at the airstrip.

He wants to fuck her.

He wants to bed my wife.

Over my dead body, fuckface.

With my menu dumped, I scald the server with a glare hot enough to deviate his focus off Emerson’s tits and warn a handful of others surrounding us that I will tolerate most mistakes, but this, blatantly disrespecting me in my home by fawning over my wife, is the quickest way to get fired.

I was a jealous, neurotic fuck when we dated. I can only see it worsening now that Emerson finally has my last name, and I showcase my assumption in the nastiest way possible.

“While you were getting ready?—”

“Ready?” Emerson interrupts, her brow cocked. “Do you mean when I had to take care of business myself because you left me hanging like you’re no longer capable of pleasing a woman?”

The snickers from our staff taper to silence when my narrowed gaze shoots around the room.

They don’t know me, so they have no clue I’m the cruisy, playful Dokovic heir. As far as they know, I’m as ruthless as Andrik and as heartless as my father.

There’s only one person who knows differently. It is the same person attempting to goad me into making another mistake because she knows there’s no possibility I will walk away twice.

Getting my dick sucked was satisfying as fuck, but it is the bottom of the barrel compared to Emerson’s many other skills.

Bedding her is the equivalent of bedding a goddess—incomparable.

With the dining room silent, I try again. “While you were getting ready, I made some adjustments to our marriage contract.”

Emerson tries to interrupt me again, so I speak faster, foiling both her attempt and Kolya’s huffed admission that he has caught me in a lie with words.

I’ve done nothing in the past three hours but fight the urge to return to Emerson’s room and finish what she started. She doesn’t know that, though, and I’m too pissed she tried to play me for a fool— again —to act otherwise.

“All skirts or dresses you wear must have knee length or longer hems. Choose flats instead of stilettos. If you can’t abide by that term because of budget constraints, go back to term one and scratch out knee length.

Chiffon, lace, or any other material incapable of keeping your tits concealed are now banned. ”

Emerson’s mouth falls open more the longer I speak.

I get off on her shocked silence.

I’m the first to admit that Emerson ruled the roost during our tumultuous three years. What she said went. No questions asked.

The change-up is addictive, and I get lost in the power trip as I am sure she did when I handed her the keys to the kingdom the first time she raked her teeth over my knob.

“If you flirt with another man in my presence, I will permanently remove him from your life.”

I flick my eyes to Kolya before slowly shifting them to the server, who looks suddenly nervous.

“You’re insane,” Emerson snarls as Kolya removes the server from the dining room with two clicks of his fingers. “He was doing his job!”

Her reply reminds me of how fast my trust dwindled when she left me at the altar looking like a fool, and when she peered up at me after swallowing my release like she was hungry for my cum.

My “spare” title didn’t shunt me from the family as much as my “inability to control my woman.” My father and grandfather treated me like a leper for years after Emerson dumped me.

I refuse to step into those shoes again.

“Speaking of jobs…” I wait for Emerson’s eyes to return to my face before saying, “You no longer have one. If I can’t trust you not to flirt with members of our staff in front of me, I don’t trust?—”

“You don’t trust me at all. Right? That’s pretty much what you insinuated earlier.”

When I nod, stupidly putting my head on the guillotine block, Emerson’s cheeks redden so fast that her face competes with the coloring of the wine a female waiter fills her glass with.

“And if I don’t agree with your new terms?”

She stares at me like she hates me when I nudge my head to the door she walked through only hours ago.

If she walks this time, she will lose far more than her heart.

Emerson’s lips twitch in preparation to speak, but before she can, the chef announces our meals are ready to be served.

After ten seconds of flicking her eyes between the menu and the chef, Emerson settles them on me. They’re still full of contempt and somewhat wet. “I haven’t ordered yet, so how could my meal be ready?”

“I ordered for you,” I reply while accepting the napkin a female waiter is attempting to place across my lap, happy to abide by the rules of our marriage, even after announcing them as if they’re solely for Emerson.

The waitress has been giving me gaga eyes all evening. She’s the type I’d usually go for. Blonde, big-breasted, and submissive. But with the tenderloin of all meats sitting across from me, it’s hard to pay attention to anything.

I walk straight into Emerson’s trap. “Then why were you eyeballing the menu when I arrived?” She doesn’t hide her smirk like the dozen staff around her do. She frees it as viciously as her mocking expression. “Is the Big Bad Wolf scared of Little Red Riding Hood?”

I bring her confidence down a smidge. “I was perusing the menu because I didn’t want anything to taint the image of you on your knees, gagging on my cock. Not even that pretty Little Red Riding Hood outfit that will only look better when it is sitting in tatters at the foot of my bed.”

Since my reply is honest, she can’t deny it.

Instead, she shifts her eyes to Chef and says, “To ensure there is no chance of that mistake occurring again, I would like to change my order, please.”

Chef mumbles and groans before he seeks permission from me to humor her suggestion. Women have no say in the Dokovic world. Well, they didn’t. The tides have been shifting since Zoya entered the realm. They just haven’t stretched this far inland yet.

When I jerk up my chin, agreeing to Chef’s silent question, Emerson waves him to her side of the dining room. I can’t hear what she orders. My heart is thudding too loudly for that. But it doubles the devilish gleam in her eyes and wipes my schedule clean for the evening.

Hell has been vacated since a newer, more evil playground has been established.

With my meal selections returned to the kitchen to await the preparation of Emerson’s dish, I settle in for a long wait. I doubt it will be as long as the three hours Emerson took to leave our suite, but I’m so fucking hungry that it will seem like a lifetime.

If only food could fulfill all my cravings.

A thick pane of glass forms the dining table, which could easily seat twenty. The only other setting excluding mine is directly across from me, meaning I can see the skin the dangerous split of Emerson’s skirt exposes. It only needs to travel an inch higher, and I’d be able to see her panties.

Needing to take my focus off how damp her panties were when I raked my eyes over her body seconds after spilling my load down her throat, I attempt to spark a conversation. “Have you spoken with your mother tonight?”

Emerson scoffs but remains quiet.

So fucking stubborn.

“I read reports about her treatment earlier. The trial stats are impressive.”

Why the fuck am I waving a white flag like I detonated the first bomb?

She kissed me.

She removed my cock from my trousers before trekking her tongue across the tip.

She broke my heart, not the other way around.

So it shouldn’t be my responsibility to patch up her mistakes.

I’m saved from searching for answers I’ll never get from myself when Chef returns to the dining room and says, “Dinner is served.”

My brows furrow as my curiosity rises. Emerson must have ordered something basic, because it takes Chef almost twenty minutes to make a grilled cheese sandwich. That’s how pedantic he is with his ingredient selections.

Anyone who prepares meals for the head of our country receives the same anal-pleasing chip implant.

A server removes the silver dome from my plate. It shows a medium-rare steak, mini jacket potatoes, and an assortment of vegetables, drizzled in Chef’s secret garlic and herb sauce.

My stomach grumbles while taking in my meal, but I remember you don’t have to be raised with manners to use them before digging in.

I stray my eyes to Emerson’s side of the table in just enough time to see her dome lifted, exposing her dinner selection. She picked a peanut butter sandwich with a generous side serving of… You guessed it! Peanut butter.

As her teeth stab a sandwich filled with so much ghastly nuttiness that it oozes from the side, her eyes flare with victory.

She wipes an enormous chunk of peanut butter from the corner of her mouth before pouting when it flops onto the exposed skin high on her thigh, completely missing the napkin she refused to place in her lap.

I banish the fantasy of licking the sheen her panties couldn’t conceal in the owner’s suite as Emerson mentally adjusts the score of our tit-for-tat game.

The fact she sucked my dick keeps the score even on my board, though I may need to change things up to keep it that way.

You can’t win if you’re unwilling to play out of the fear of losing, and Emerson hasn’t feared anything in her life.

Not even losing me.