Page 12 of His Prince (Unexpectedly Twisted #2)

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MIKHAIL

“ W hy are you wearing that?” Ivan asks when he takes in my t-shirt that is missing its sleeves and my shorts with one pant leg completely gone. Angel spared nothing. Even my socks have holes in them. I have someone delivering more clothes later, an emergency wardrobe, but for now, I’m stuck with this.

Although knowing Angel, he’ll find those clothes and chop them to pieces before I can even get them.

Perhaps I should warn the guards that he’s not to touch my things.

Knowing how they fawn all over Angel, though, I bet nothing changes. I’m just the man who pays their wages. Angel is the one they’re loyal to.

I scrub a hand down my face and stare at my brother, who is looking even more of a mess than me.

“Ivan. You have a stain on your shirt the shape of Alaska.”

“Do not speak to me of Alaska,” he grumbles and then takes a sip from his water bottle. “Now, we must talk about what you’re going to do about what I found.”

For a moment, I wonder if he’s talking about the woman in white, if he’s been seeing her too, standing outside the windows, looming like a willowy ghost, but I shake that thought away.

It’s nothing more than my mind playing tricks on me.

Guilt is a funny thing. So is grief.

“All you told me is that there is money missing,” I reply.

“Yes, minute amounts, but many of them so they’re adding up, and it’s being siphoned off. Whoever it is, is doing it through the massage parlors, I think. The weed dispensaries are clean. I’m still checking the laundromats.”

“This isn’t your job, Ivan. I have accountants for this. You know I’m not good with numbers.”

“Yes, I know this. You have always been terrible at math. But those accountants are not trustworthy. I know this.” He shakes his head and then sighs, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “I want to do more digging, want to speak to the men who handle your books in each business. They’re obviously up to something.”

“That will take forever. There are dozens of them.”

“Yes, but we need to rule everyone out to find who is taking this money from you.”

His eyes are wild behind his glasses, and I rub a hand across my chest, feeling the stress of it start to tighten, a winding band across my heart.

“I don’t know if I care.”

He bangs his fist on the table and sputters, “Mikhail, this is your inheritance. It was passed down to you. And someone is trying to steal it. You must find them. If you can’t trust these people, then who can you trust?”

I know this, I fucking know it, but I don’t know if I fucking care.

“Alright, alright,” I concede.

He blinks up at me and leans back in his chair, running a hand through his hair .

“I will not have the Ivanov name destroyed. Not for some greedy…nincompoop.”

“I don’t want that either. It’s why I married into the Costello family. Connections are everything.”

“They are, but they mean nothing if you have no money to buy them.”

I lean against the wall and force myself to care. I need to care. This is my burden, the family name, the one left to me when they all died. Whoever is stealing from me needs to pay. I need to find out who it is and hand them over to Georgiy.

Let him pull the answers from them. Methodically.

“This all started when you married Angelo. Perhaps he is the issue.”

I envision it, Angel siphoning money away from the coffers while cutting the ankles off my pants, but then dismiss it. He’s the devil, but I don’t think he’d steal. He has enough money of his own.

I realized this when I saw he hadn’t used the credit card I gave him on anything other than groceries. He’s spent only his own money on the garden, the paint, the rugs and curtains. He’s transforming this place and doing it all on his own.

“It’s not him.”

Ivan sniffs and then looks back at his computer. “I say you flush them out. And then hand them over to Georgiy. Show them you’re not to be messed with.”

I sigh and feel like crawling back into bed and sinking into sleep, but I can’t do that. I have a business to run and a feral husband who is ruining my peaceful existence.

My mind slips to him on his knees before me, that wet, tight mouth around my dick, and my heart rate increases.

My thoughts move to the contract, the fact that he’s the one I need to be fucking, and I rub at my jaw in contemplation.

I do have a sex drive, one that’s only increased with age, and if Angel is going to insist I follow that contract we signed, then perhaps he should abide by it as well .

Yes, that makes sense.

Don’t even talk to me about never being with a man before. It seems my tastes have changed. Slightly. The change has been slow, something only Angel could accomplish. Talking to him on the phone, watching his mouth move, the way he spoke with sweet smiles and flushed cheeks, the way he got himself off…he somehow snuck into my brain and made me want him.

That is the only explanation for why I want to fuck him again.

“Where are you going?” Ivan asks as I move toward the door, my mind focused on one thing. “You going to try to figure out who is behind this?”

“Yes,” I lie.

I couldn’t give a fuck about the money right now.

Right now, my focus is on my husband.

My little devil in disguise.

I find Angel in the garden after finally receiving the delivery of my new clothes. My steps falter, memories from when this was my safe place filtering through my mind. The scent of roses and lilac, the way my grandmother and mother would sit on the swings, listening to the fountains bubbling, the birds chirping.

I let it all fall to ruin after they were gone.

He’s bringing it back to life.

Laughter filters through the space, and I watch as Angel struggles to escape the tickling fingers of Felix. He finds shelter in Casey’s arms and my fingers twitch by my sides.

Everyone wants a piece of him.

Everyone wants him.

This little slice of heaven, the happiness he brings.

It makes me angry all over again.

My knuckles crack and my stormy expression must dim the light around them just a bit because everyone freezes and glances at me .

“Hey, boss,” Felix says, clearing his throat and taking a step away from my husband. “Didn’t see you there.”

No, they didn’t. They were too focused on Angel.

Casey’s arm tightens around him, and Angel doesn’t even attempt to move away. He almost seems to lean into him. He knows what he’s doing.

“Did you need something?” Angel finally asks, his voice sugary sweet.

“I need to speak to you.”

His eyes flare and he pushes away from Casey, moving toward me with sure steps. In his hair by his ear is a flower, something that he slid in there while he was flirting with my men.

“What do you need?” he asks as he comes to a stop a few feet from me. I can feel Casey and Felix’s eyes on me, watchful, possessive.

“We will speak in private.”

He huffs and then folds his arms across his chest.

“Fine. But make it quick. I have flowers to plant and interviews to get to.”

“Interviews for what?”

“A gardener to help me.”

“You have my men.”

“Yes, but not always.”

He strides away, moving to a more secluded part of the garden, leaving Casey and Felix behind. He stops near an arch and my chest constricts.

I rub at it and force myself not to relive it. To not think about what happened here, beneath the wisteria.

“Your clothes look…boring,” he says, his gaze dragging up my body.

I stare at him, unimpressed with his sassiness. And yet, even so, my dick twitches in my pants.

An unruly, fitful thing .

“Anyway, what is it?” he asks, leaning against those crumbling stones and forcing his mouth into a thin line.

“The contract.”

“What about it?” he asks, standing up a little taller.

“You read it?”

“I did.”

I pause and keep my focus on him and nothing else. “We are to be…monogamous.”

His cheeks pinken and he dips his chin. “I know. Unfortunate, isn’t it? Especially since you already tried to break it.”

“And you haven’t? I see the way you flirt with the bodyguards.”

“I’m not flirting. I’m being kind.” He digs his foot into the ground near that arch, and I can’t stand the sight of it anymore.

I grab his arm and pull him farther away from it. He stumbles beside me and curses when I finally let him go near a large willow tree at the far end of the garden.

“Don’t ever touch me like that again,” he says, and I grind my teeth.

“You have no respect for me.”

“I don’t. I loathe you.”

My jaw works back and forth and his anger only seems to heighten my desire for him.

“Well, what did you want to say? Or did you already say it and I missed it entirely?”

“We will fuck. Nightly.”

“The hell we will,” he says and his cheeks darken. “I’m not fucking you. Ever. Again.”

My eye twitches at his adamancy and he shifts on his feet.

“You’re my husband.”

“Unfortunately.”

He sighs and pulls the flower from his hair, plucking the petals off and throwing them onto the ground. I watch as they flutter, land, and start to shrivel.

“Will you let this go?” he asks after a moment.

“No.”

“Of course you won’t. You don’t give a shit about me.”

I don’t answer that because truthfully, I don’t give a shit about anyone.

“Fine. I’ll think about it. But expect to be disappointed. I don’t want your dick anywhere near me.”

“That wasn’t how you felt last night,” I retort, remembering how his hand felt against me, how his mouth felt even better.

He scoffs, blushing so red it bleeds down his neck and up to his ears.

“That was just hate. Pure and simple.”

I let him brush past me, his arm hitting mine as he walks away.

“I’ll let you know tonight.”

“Looking forward to it, little devil.”