Page 27 of Her Rustanov Husband (Ruthless Bullies #2)

Crying While Driving

SKYE (Again)

You know what’s a really bad idea? Crying while driving.

In the pouring rain.

The Mini’s wipers and my hands were both swiping uselessly. My tears kept coming, just like the torrent of rain pouring down from the gray sky above.

It felt like punishment. An indictment for lying straight to Yom’s face about not wanting what he wanted.

The look on his face when I took my hands back after saying the exact opposite of how I’d felt about the last magical ten days he’d given me… the memory flashed across my mind, horror-bright.

Oh God. Don’t think about that, Skye.

More tears blurred the road in front of me, layered over the sheets of rain.

There was only one memory that counted, I reminded myself.

The most potent one: Yom confronting me after the first Clara Quinn seminar to make it crystal clear I’d earned myself a number-one hater by crossing him. And my super-sincere apology wouldn’t be enough for me to unfuck around and not find out.

“You are truly, sincerely, so, so sorry. But I am Rustanov. And Rustanovs do not forgive,” he’d sneered.

Right before making my next few weeks a hellish slow-motion lesson in consequences. What would he do if he found out that?—

“Incoming call! Incoming call!” the infotainment system announced, flashing Merry Winters above her 218 phone number. “Would you like to answer it?”

I sniffled hard and forced myself to press the green button, ready to explain to Merry how utterly I’d failed to secure the five million dollars—even for Chris’s sake.

Also, I needed to get myself together so I didn’t drift off the two-lane highway taking me home— home being with Chris and Merry at the former dogfighting farm we’d turned into a thriving pet-adoption café, goat-yoga studio, and therapy-dog rescue/training center.

Not with Yom in that magical mansion where he’d thrown a Summer Fae post-elopement reception.

Just for me.

Oh God…

“Merry, I’m so, so sorry,” I blurted out before I could collapse into more tears. “I can’t go through with this. I think we’ll need to sell Paws tap the emergency fund; prioritize fostering the goats through Gemidgee High’s 4-H program.

The plan sounded better and better as she went on, but…

I looked at Bully, curled in a tight circle against Chris. “He barely tolerated being shut in down here. I don’t know how he’d handle an international flight.”

“One problem at a time.” Merry glanced fondly at Bully. “The point is, we’ve got options.”

Options…

I want you to know you have choices with me this time, zayka .