“I never meant for this to happen, you know.”
“You can plead innocence that night,” she says. “But what about this morning, when you stole the rest of my future by marrying me?”
I’m not about to explain my reasoning. And I’m not about to ask for forgiveness, either.
“Would you have rather I let you marry my cousin?”
“All I have is your word against his,” she says. “And let’s face it: I’m not allowed to have words with him at all, am I?”
“You want to talk to Maxim?”
“I want to talk to Alex!” she cries in frustration. “He’s the man I agreed to marry.”
“He’s a fantasy,” I growl. “He doesn’t fucking exist. ‘Alex Royston’ is nothing more than a mirage that was going to disappear the moment you signed on the dotted line.”
“Again,” she says, raising her voice, “that’s your story. All I’m hearing is your version of things. I haven’t been given the chance to get anyone else’s opinion.”
“And you won’t, so stop asking. If you think I’m going to let Maxim anywhere near you—”
“That’s not your damn call!” she interrupts furiously.
If she’s scared of me, she does a freaking brilliant job of hiding it. Those green eyes are pure fire.
It’s like she was fucking made for me.
“I have a right to decide who I want to talk to and where I want to go,” she adds. “I have the right to decide who I want to marry.”
I lean in towards her a little. “And you want to marry him, is that it?”
“He promised me security,” she snaps. “And safety. A chance for me to go back home and finally see—”
She breaks off mid-sentence, her cheeks flushing once again.
“Finally see whom?”
“My family,” she says, her voice teetering on the brink of collapse. “My sister, my nephews. I haven’t seen them in years! I haven’t gotten to watch them grow up. I haven’t been there to… to tuck them into bed…”
A sob bursts through her lips, and she turns her wild, tear-stained eyes away from me in shame.
“Camila—”
“Don’t!” she says. “Don’t do that. Don’t say my name as if you know me.”
“I do know you.”
“One conversation doesn’t make us friends, Isaak,” she hisses. “And being married doesn’t make us husband and wife.”
A single tear breaks free and trickles down her cheek. And that tear…
Fuck.
Seeing that lonely tear does something to me. Something utterly unexpected.
It makes me fucking furious.
Does she not realize what I’ve saved her from? Does she not realize that I’ve just given her back her life?
“You’re upset,” I say coldly. “Go upstairs and get some rest.”
“Stop ordering me around. You’ve taken enough from me without trying to steal away my free will, too.”
“Is that what you think I’ve done?”
“Isn’t it?”
Those green eyes gleam under the light from the chandeliers hanging overhead.
“I’m not free, am I?” she says.
“You want freedom?” I ask. “Fine. I’ll give you freedom.”
Then I storm out of the dining room, leaving Camila to our half-finished meal.
13
Camila
“I don’t understand.”
“You and me both,” I sigh.
Bree stares at me so long that I wonder for a second if the screen froze. “You’re with him. Him him?”
“Him him.”
“Well, fuck me sideways.”
I have to smile at that. Bree stopped swearing when she had Peter, thirteen years ago. But if there were ever a time to take it up again, it’d be right now.
“So the house you’re in right now is his?”
“Bree, focus.”
“Sorry. I’m just trying to wrap my head around this.”
“You and me both.”
“Stop saying that,” she snaps.
“Sorry.”
“No, no, I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I’m just… stunned. And worried. Cami, this is kidnapping.”
“Technically, yeah.”
“And legally, morally, spiritually, psychologically… I could keep going.”
“I get it. But Bree, he hasn’t hurt me.”
“Yet!” she screeches. “Yet!”
“That’s the thing,” I say. “I don’t think he’s going to.”
She stops short and gives me an odd look. “Cami…”
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure something out.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Cami, you don’t still have feelings for the man, do you?” she blurts.
I end up doing a brilliant impression of a goldfish. Lips flapping uselessly with no words emerging.
“That… that’s a ridiculous question.”
“Is it?” she asks. “Because you just took about ten light years to answer a very simple question with a very obvious answer.”
“He’s responsible for every bad thing that’s happened in my life in the last six years,” I remind her.
“Mhmm,” she agrees. “But he’s also responsible for Jo.”
And bingo, she’s hit the nail on the head. That’s the impossible reality of my life right now. Isaak Vorobev is the reason my world imploded six years ago.
But he also—unbeknownst to him—gave me the biggest joy of my life.
Jo Ferrara.
My daughter.
“Have you told him?” Bree asks quietly.
I lean back in my chair and rub my face. “Of course not. And I don’t plan to, either.”
“Mhmm…”
“You know, I really wish you would stop saying ‘Mhmm.’”
“What’s wrong with ‘Mhmm’?”
“Nothing’s wrong with ‘Mhmm.’ What’s wrong is your tone.”
“There’s no tone.” She brushes a stray lock of hair out of her face innocently.
“I wish you would just come right out and say it.”
“I thought I already had.”
“I don’t have feelings for the man. I never did.”
Bree frowns. “Well, ‘never’ is a strong word…”
“Bree!” I snap. “I had one conversation with him one night.”
“And you also slept with him that same night.”
I close my eyes and cover my face with my hands. “Fuck.”
Bree laughs. “You don’t have to do that, Cami. Not with me. I was glad you finally decided to break your dry spell. I just wish you’d chosen a different man.”
“You and me—”
“Cami!”
I grin. “Sorry.”
“Where are you, exactly?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?” she demands.
“For one, I don’t actually know. For another, I don’t want to piss him off and ruin my chances of getting out of here.”
“You think that’s likely?”
“I think he’ll keep his word,” I admit.
“Okay, well, wow.”
I sigh. “What?”
“You like him,” she breathes. “And if not ‘like,’ you definitely have this kind of… begrudging respect for the man.”
“He hasn’t actually lied to me.”
“He hasn’t had the chance to!” Bree points out. “You’ve known him for what, a couple of hours in total, if you string together all the time you’ve really spent together?”
“I know, I know, you’re right,” I say in defeat. “Of course you’re right. But I’m going with my instincts on this one. Maybe if I cooperate, then I’ll have a better chance of seeing Jo. Maybe I’ll get the chance to be a real mother to her.”