Page 15 of The Pakhan's Arranged Bride

I giggle and he looks at me through narrowed eyes. “Is that funny to you, Ulyana?” he asks, amused.

“I can’t really picture you cooking anything.” I shrug.

“What, then? You have a single-minded notion of who I am? I do business, I got home, that’s it?”

“Perhaps a few parties in between?” I reply, a cheeky hint to my words.

“Mm,” he says, clearly knowing I’m referring to his playboy reputation. “There are a lot more layers to me than that, Ulyana. For example, I happen to love collecting rare and vintage books.”

“Really?”

“Hmm. You haven’t found the room behind the library in your…explorations?”

I bite the inside of my cheek and drop my eyes, pretending to be cutting my food. “I noticed a door,” I say innocently.

“There is a room behind that door, a glass room with environmentally controlled atmosphere designed to preserves the pages of old books. If you ever want to look at them you, can let me know, I’ll take you in there and show you the correct way to handle them. I noticed you spend a lot of time in the library, so I assume you have a fondness for books.”

“I do. I love reading. And I can spend hours in a secondhand book shop, but I’ve never had an opportunity to look at proper vintage books.”

I watch Benedikt as he talks about his collection, excited to tell me how he came across the extremely rare ones. His eyes light up and I start to see that he’s right. It was presumptuous of me to see him as this shallow person. His reputation is not the be-all, end-all of who he is.

I realize that there is so much about Benedikt that I don’t know, and suddenly I’m curious to know more.

I catch myself staring again, lost in thoughts of him, and I quickly sit up, pulling myself together.

Next thing I know, I’ll find myself inanotherawkwardly intimate moment with him.

No.

I have to keep things professional. I can’t let things go in any other direction.

Chapter 5 - Benedikt

It’s late, it’s been a long day, and I’ve hardly managed to get any work done.

“Sir, did you sign off on the latest report?” Jadon asks, standing at my desk.

“Yes, uh—it’s here somewhere,” I huff, shuffling papers across my desk. It’s a mess. And it’snevera mess. This is so unlike me. My head has been busy all day, but not busy with the things it needs to be busy with; no, instead of that, I’ve been thinking about her.

I growl in frustration, hating the mess I’ve created; I prefer things to be in order.

“Is that it?” Jadon asks, pointing to the brown folder.

“Yes, thanks,” I mutter, annoyed with myself.

I slide it out from beneath my laptop and hand it to him.

He nods and leaves the office and I’m alone with my thoughts again.

I lean back in the chair and rest my hands behind my head. Why was she snooping the other day? What was she looking for?

Could it be that she really was just curious about the set up?

I hardly know anything about Ulyana.

The bottom line is that I trust Nestor.

I think that’s the most important thing. I trust Nestor, and he wouldn’t have sent her on some crazy mission to find things out about me. I have nothing to hide from him, anyway.