Page 6 of Wicked Refusal

I get the fuck out of there.

You were always good at running away, after all.

My heels clack against the marble, a sharptap-tap-tapthat mimics the frantic beat of my heart. My vision is swimming, breaths coming in quick and short and painful.

You were always good at running away, after all.

If he’s wrong, if he’s wrong, I don’t give a damn. I couldn’t care less what Yulian thinks of me.

Because I can’t believe I ever thought anything good ofhim.

I wash my face in the sink. The tiny presence in my belly makes itself known, a light kick like a question mark.

I wish I had an answer to give it.

“Two for two,” I mutter to myself as I dry off. “Great job, Mia. You’ve landed yourself a one hundred percent rate of shitty baby daddies. Your mom will be proud.”

“Who are you talking to?”

I swirl around, heart in my throat.

Yulian stands in the doorway. His perfect suit hasn’t got a wrinkle on it. It’s black and sleek as midnight. His shirt is black, too, slightly unbuttoned where a tie should go, revealing the sculpted lines of his neck and collarbone. I can’t see them, of course, but I know without having to look that abs like marble lie just underneath there. I know his body as well as he knows mine, after all. And those abs, those hard, tattooed lines of his, they’re all waiting to be touched and felt in ways that are most definitely not in the Bible.

Goddammit.

It’s so fucking unfair. He shouldn’t get to look this good—not after all he’s done to me. Once Brad revealed his true colors, I could never find him attractive again. So why hasn’t my body gotten the memo about Yulian?

“You can’t be here,” I say stupidly. “This is the ladies’ room!”

He makes a show of glancing around as if in mock surprise. “And yet here I am.”

“You—you know what I mean!” My face goes up in flames. “You can’t just—follow people into— How long have you even been standing there?!”

“Long enough.”

But that’s a lie, too. It’s written all over his face—he didn’t hear me whispering to myself. Not the part that matters, anyway. He has no idea whose baby I’m growing inside me. No idea he’s got a claim to it.

And that’s exactly how things will stay.

If this experience has taught me anything, it’s that my kids are better off without their fathers.

At the rate you’re going, they might be better off without their mothers, too,says a sickening, sneering voice in my head.

“Excuse me,” I mutter. “I need to go back to?—”

Yulian’s hand is swift. In a single motion, he’s got my arm trapped against the wall, a painless but unbreakable hold.

He’s everywhere, he’s everything. His palm, hot on my skin. His eyes, scanning every inch of me. It’s too much, all of it, bringing back memories that are best kept buried six feet under.

Then he slides his fingers into my wrist cuff andyanks.

“What are you?—!”

But it’s too late: the lace tears clean in half.

Then Yulian’s eyes widen, pupils reduced to pinpricks.

I don’t need to follow his gaze to know what he’s seeing: bruises. Black, purple, blue—a kaleidoscope of pain shimmering up and down my arm. Some fresh, some old, all painful.