Page 38 of Broken Vows (Marital Privileges #4)

Mikhail

D im lights cast shadows on the bottles lined up like soldiers ready for battle when I enter the office of my first solo establishment. The clinking of glasses and the murmur of conversations add additional thumps to the mariachi beat of my hungover head.

I woke up with a pounding headache and the remnants of last night’s splurge still lingering in my system. The thuds of my temples are nothing compared to the thumping of my heart when I recognized the fiery red hair splayed across my chest this morning when I woke.

I thought I had imagined Emerson’s presence last night, and as much as this kills me to admit, I’m glad I didn’t.

As I stroked Emerson’s tear-stained cheek, needing to ensure it wasn’t still wet, parts of our fight rolled through my head. The accusations and the pain came through clearly, but some details were hazy, blurred by the excessive consumption of alcohol.

Even though I couldn’t recall all our conversation, I knew I was responsible for the tears she had shed last night.

I felt it in my chest. But since I also recalled how her voice trembled when she confessed to leaving me at the altar, I slipped out of bed and headed to work like hours behind a desk is a cure for the unease clutching my throat.

It isn’t, but tell me one man who is smart while living without a heart?

After sitting behind my desk, I take another mouthful of the burning liquid I keep hidden in my desk drawer, not bothering with a glass.

Guilt-erasing chugs don’t require formalities.

I’ve not once intentionally set out to hurt Emerson, not even after she left me, but I don’t feel confident declaring that anymore. I feel like I broke her heart, like I betrayed the memories that have kept me alive for the past ten years.

The whiskey scald hitting the back of my throat distracts me from the confusion swirling in my gut, but it does little to replace the security footage I watched earlier of Emerson leaving Zelenolsk Manor an hour after waking from replaying in my head.

Her eyes were somewhat wet, but there was a fire in them I’ve not seen in a decade. A fire that was once only able to be extinguished with hours beneath the sheets.

My teeth grit when my cock hardens at the thought of being her extinguisher of choice. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Love is like a drug. Rational thoughts are nonexistent under its influence, and bad choices seem plausible.

When I lower the almost empty whiskey bottle, the edge clanks against my mouse, firing up my computer monitor. I never use passwords, so access to the emails I was scrolling earlier is immediate.

My dislike of delayed gratification meant Emerson always took off her panties as the last call for drinks was yelled across the bustling pub her family owned.

While trying to make out she didn’t enter my thoughts for the umpteenth time this evening, my bleary eyes scan a recently received email.

The more I read, the more my blood boils. The email announces the cancellation of the order I placed while waiting for Emerson at her family’s church for the second time in my life. The cause states the purchase is no longer needed.

How fucking dare they!

I push back on my chair harder than intended. The bang of its crash into the wall is half the wallop my office door does when I throw it open.

Waitstaff glance up when I enter the main hub of the bar, but I ignore them, uncaring if they think I’m a grumpy cunt. They don’t understand what I’m going through. They will never understand, because I’ve only ever given them a fraction of the man I am when I’m with Emerson. The bare minimum.

Disgust gnaws at me as I walk past numerous patrons eyeing me with zeal, but I shove it down, refusing to acknowledge them or my once go-to coping mechanism.

Losing myself in a bevy of heavy-breasted women isn’t the solution to my predicament. I have no clue what the solution is, but I know that isn’t it.

I find Lynx, my operations manager, toward the end of the bar, serving patrons.

“I told you I wanted the electrostatic precipitator installed no later than the end of the month, so why the fuck was my order canceled?”

Lynx knows me better than anyone does. He’s been on my payroll since my inaugural year, and we’ve been friends even longer than that, but going above my head like this is outside of his pay scale.

Lynx hits a generous-tipping patron with a flirty wink before cranking his head my way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t cancel anything.”

“The electrostatic precipitator that was to be installed in the Lidny pub next weekend.” My voice is harsh, and my temper is frayed. “Someone canceled it.”

His laughter frays my mood further. “It wasn’t me. I’m not fucking stupid. I don’t want to die.”

“Then who canceled it?” I can’t think of a single person dumb enough to go against me when it comes to something like this.

Except perhaps one.

The air dampens with an incoming storm as the hairs on my nape prickle.

I peer past Lynx, my body’s awareness of its mate’s closeness still strong despite the amount of alcohol I’ve forced through my veins over the past thirty hours, just as the voice from my dreams floats through my ears. “That would be me.”

Emerson is at the end of the bar, mixing cocktails and pulling beers like she owns the place. Her presence commands the attention of everyone in the space, and she has a lineup of patrons desperate to be served by her.

Shockingly, not all of them are male.

She is a girlie girl as much as she is a sexpot.

Tension spikes when our eyes lock, and electricity courses through my body. I should hate how her presence instantly places my defenses on the back foot, but I don’t.

I can’t let her know that, though, or she will eat me alive. Instead, I try to downplay her craved yet unexpected arrival, certain it will end in disappointment.

I lost count of the number of hours I wasted watching the entry doors of this very club, awaiting her arrival.

I didn’t name my first establishment Ember’s for no reason. I wanted Emerson to know how badly I wanted her.

How badly I still want her.

The honesty of my inner monologue keeps my expression impassive when Emerson says, “The outfitter was charging you double for a subpar unit.” She hands a patron one of our most requested drinks—the Ember Fury—before she serves another client, still explaining.

“That’s the thing about looking preppy.”

I scoff, disgusted by her analogy. Preppy boys aren’t her type. She likes men who are rough around the edges and completely under her control.

“They think they can charge more by announcing it is designer .” She air quotes her last word after wiping her sticky hands down her barmaid’s apron.

The drink, named in honor of her hair and fiery attitude, is so popular because we use fresh tangerines instead of bottled juice.

“I got a better unit for half the price.” Her eyes mist as they stray to me.

“The new manufacturer will install it as per your request by the end of business next weekend.”

I purchased the electrostatic precipitator for Emerson’s mother’s bar.

Although doctors doubt Inga’s cancer diagnosis resulted from working in a smoke-filled environment for three decades, I wasn’t as convinced.

It’s too late to adjust the harm that has already occurred to Inga’s lungs, but it will lessen the chance of Emerson facing the same horrifying diagnosis, and that is all I care about.

I tell a patron I’ll be with him in a minute when he grunts about me standing in a high-traffic zone and not matching the workload of my staff before I ask the most obnoxious question I’ve ever muttered. “What are you doing here, Emerson?”

She takes my hard tone in stride. “Working.” She winks before she pulls a beer for the patron pissed that he finally reached the front of the line only to be ignored. “Unlike you.”

Her hip bump is playful, but it does little to shift my confusion.

“You got paid.” Even with my GPA smashed from too much liquor, I know this because when Kolya couldn’t get the payment approved by my grandfather’s solicitors without documented proof by a medical professional that we had consummated our vows, I transferred the payment from my personal account five minutes later.

“I did.” Emerson’s face screws up, switching her features from sexy to cute.

Her expression matches mine.

I swear we’ve already had this conversation.

I shake my head, ridding it of the confusion clumped there when Emerson says.

“But I organized a replacement electrostatic precipitator after returning the funds to your account, so I figured I should get a job to help pay for it.” She flashes Lynx a grateful smile that he accepts too readily for me not to veer my fist toward his face the instant we close.

“And Lynx was generous enough to offer me one.”

“So that’s why you’re here? For a job?” I hate the devastation in my voice even more than I hate that she went to Lynx instead of me.

Lynx was there when we dated, but not in this essence. He was never the man she ran to when she needed help. Once, only I had that privilege.

I wonder if I slipped and hit my head when Emerson murmurs, “That… and…”

I could finish this game now, end it before it spirals out of control like I did yesterday, but I can’t. I’ve been out of the game so long that plays like this should be foreign to me, but since it involves Emerson, it is as if time stood still for ten years.

“And…?”

Her prolonged sweep of my body sends a jolt through me that hardens my cock, and I’m not the only one noticing.

Emerson’s face reddens with jealousy as her narrowed gaze scans a group of women in front of her. My bulging crotch has attracted admirers, and their vocalized desires make Emerson furious.

“Seriously?” Emerson mutters, eyeing them with disgust. “He’s wearing a ring.” She thrusts her hand at the ring not even two bottles of whiskey could coerce me to remove. “That’s a clear sign he’s taken.”