Page 17
A nger seethed through my veins like molten lava. Every second that passed, anger traveled up my veins and roiled through my nerve endings.
This feeling was a living thing, a beast that clawed its way through me, desperate to break free.
My chest was tight, and I was breathing heavily by the time we were seated in the back of my SUV.
The hum of the engine was muted by the thunder booming inside my head.
My jaw ached from clenching it so hard, but I couldn’t stop.
Michaela hadn’t said a word since we exited her father’s office. She’d been silent the entire ride down, her face a mask of indifference, though I could see the tiny tremors in her hands as she clasped them together.
Her dark eyes were distant, unseeing, locked somewhere far away—somewhere that wasn’t here, wasn’t with me.
But I wanted that. I wanted to be the person she looked to for refuge.
My wife didn’t know how I felt, of course. Because I never told her.
Fool.
Right now, she was somewhere in the past or stuck back in that room where her father had unwittingly dismantled her like she was nothing more than a child needing to be put back in her place.
The silence between us felt suffocating. Like a thick, oppressive fog that neither of us knew how to cut through.
I could see her struggling. It was right there behind her eyes.
I wanted to break through her walls. To shout at her for holding everything in—but how could I?
I hadn’t earned her trust yet, and that was my fault.
My stomach churned just looking at her, at how small she seemed in that moment, and the anger inside me flared hotter than ever.
I was so fucked up. I knew I had no rights to any of this. Our whole marriage was just a sham, wasn’t it? A business deal orchestrated by my cold bitch of a sister.
Still, I couldn’t help it. I wanted more.
Don’t blur the lines.
Good advice. But I wouldn’t take it.
I flexed my hand around Michaela’s, having recaptured it once we entered the truck. I could deny the mutual attraction between us all I wanted, but right then I needed that contact to anchor myself.
Her fingers were cold, stiff, but I held on tighter. I had to. I was shaking with the need to do something, anything, but the last thing she needed was for me to lose control.
Never in my life had I tried so hard not to hit someone in the fucking face. Adrik Volkov— her father —had made her feel like she was some dumb kid incapable of making her own decisions.
He’d dismissed any possibility that she had married me out of anything other than a lie. A trick.
That the bastard was right was not the point. And he wasn’t. Not really.
I didn’t seduce Michaela into marrying me. Yeah, she did it out of obligation, but that was on Maggie. Not me.
Fuck. I was every bit the prick her father thought me to be, and just then, I hated myself a little bit more.
Still, it took every ounce of restraint I had not to march back into his office and punch him square in his fucking nose.
Instead, I sat there in the truck with my wife, her hand limp in mine, and I regretted not giving in to that rage.
Maybe a punch would have made things feel better. Maybe then I would have felt like I actually did something for her, taking some of that hurt and transferring it into action.
Michaela deserved someone to fight for her. Someone who wasn’t afraid to rip the world apart for her.
But I hadn’t done that.
Instead, I’d sat there and let it happen, and now here we were, in this fucking car, heading back to the penthouse in silence, where the distance between us only seemed to grow wider.
I glanced at her again, my heart twisting painfully at the sight of her slumped shoulders, the distant look in her eyes.
I wanted to fix it. Wanted to reach into her head and pull her back to me.
Make her feel like she wasn’t alone in this.
But I didn’t know how. I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t sure if anything I said would make a difference.
The only thing I knew for certain was that I was about to do whatever it took to make sure she didn’t feel like this again.
Even if it meant going to war with Adrik Volkov.
Table of Contents
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- Page 17 (Reading here)
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