His eyes warned, Don’t play games you can’t win.
Mine said, This isn’t a game. It’s hell.
After a tense pause, he released me. “You, Mila, are just a means to an end. I won’t say I didn’t enjoy it though.” His gaze flicked to the TV as my moans grew louder. “Such an enthusiastic kotyonok.”
My stomach turned, but even worse, my heart ached like it was ripped from my chest. I fell for this man. I’d cared, lusted, felt. I closed my eyes as Madame Richie’s laugh crawled from the dark corners of my mind, raising my pulse and the hair on my arms.
I tensed, feeling him walk around my chair.
“To be honest, I expected more from Alexei’s daughter. I’m almost disappointed by how easy it was.”
I opened my eyes in more ways than one. “This is about my papa.”
He chuckled, and the vibration coasted a shiver down my spine. “Give the girl a medal.”
Ronan rested his forearms on the back of my chair, caging me in, and watched while I fucked his fingers onscreen. The soft sound of my breath and my recorded moans filled the room.
He leaned in, his voice a rumble in my ear. “I wonder what your papa would think if he saw this.”
Disgust bit at my veins. He couldn’t be that twisted.
“Shall we find out?”
When he held a cell phone in front of my face, my heart sank at the sight of its sparkly white case. It was mine. I thought it was long gone with my coat, but I knew now, he always had it.
He clicked on a draft message written to my papa to show me the video in the text box.
This wasn’t real.
This couldn’t be happening to me.
Panic expanded in my lungs, clawing and biting at the flesh. My grip tightened around the armrests so hard it hurt.
“Please don’t,” I begged.
His thumb hovered over the send button. “And what will you do for me?”
I understood the insinuation in his voice. Tears ran down my cheeks, my chest heaving with the impossibility of the situation. I was torn in two different directions, but I knew even surrendering my body would be better than my papa seeing that video.
“Anything,” I cried. “I’ll do anything you want.”
“The problem is,” he said softly, nuzzling his face against my hair, “I’ve already seen it all.” His words turned cold and careless. “The novelty has worn off.”
With one press of his finger, the sound of a message sending hit my ears.
My heart dropped to the floor, and I barely heard the toneless, “Whoops,” he taunted against my ear like it was merely an accident, before pulling away from me.
Acid climbed up my throat, and then I leaned over and threw up everything in my stomach onto the Persian rug.
He lowered to his haunches in front of me and wiped some puke from my bottom lip with his thumb. “What am I going to do with you, kotyonok?”
He was no longer a conundrum wearing Versace, indifferent to the blood on his pants and my vomit on his hand. He was a monster dressed like a gentleman.
I brought my tear-filled gaze to his and said three words I’d never said before. “I hate you.”
He smiled. “Took you long enough.”
I shook with humiliation. “Why are you doing this?”