Page 48 of Wicked Refusal

“I don’t need to ‘concern’ myself?” Mia’s voice carries a dangerous edge. “Well, excuse me for caring about what happens to you.”

“You’re excused.”

I get up. But Mia doesn’t go back to her room. She follows me, right at my heels. “You don’t get to do this, Yulian. You don’t get to demand me back into your life and then cut me out of it.”

“Drop it, Mia.”

“No. You’re keeping secrets from me—again.”

Damn right I am. You’re pregnant.The thought of her losing the baby—ourbaby—because of my incompetence cuts through me, a blade of pure guilt.

“It’s none of your business.”

“You’remy business!” She’s keeping her voice low not to wake Eli, but her angry hisses feel like shouts. “You promised me this time it would be different. And here I am, witnessing you having night terrors?—”

“I don’t have night terrors.”

“I’m a nurse. I know what I saw.”

“You don’t know shit,” I answer. “You’re my guest, not my keeper. So go back to your goddamn room and mind your own fucking business.”

Mia reels back from me. As if I’d slapped her. Her flinch brings me back to the night we met, when I first saw Brad reaching for her. She’d flinched back then, too. And her eyes looked just like this.

Scared.

She’s scared of me.

“Have it your way,” she croaks. I can tell her voice’s cracking—that she’s holding back from crying. “I won’tconcern myselfwith you anymore.” She turns to leave.

Certainty grips me then. The certainty that, if I let her go now, I’ll never be able to go back. I’ll lose her—for good.

And I can’t bear that.

“Mia.”

I can’t bear losing one more family.

“Mia.”

I can’t bear losingher.

“Mia!”

“What?!”

My hand closes around hers. I didn’t even realize I was going after her, not until I felt her soft skin under mine.

Then I kiss her.

16

MIA

Yulian’s lips feel like fire.

His touch, his scent—it’s like cedarwood and ashes. Like a forest burning up in flames.

I shouldn’t let myself be swept in. Shouldn’t let him drag me back into hell with him, into that fiery passion that almost became our ruin.