I turned towards Yuri. I opened my mouth to ask and then closed it. This is what my mother wanted. I rose to my feet, and with a smile handed my seat over.
It was time to leave either way. I walked away from Yuri and did not look back.
Chapter 36
April
The glass stem shattered between my fingers… and it startled everyone at the table.
“Mr. Volkov, are you all right?” April’s half-sister asked, her eyes wide with concern.
She was beautiful, of course, but there was not one thing about her that attracted me to her. I rose to my feet.
April’s mother appeared suddenly. “Mr. Volkov,” she said sweetly.
A quiet explosion went off in my brain. I held her gaze and spoke very calmly, doing all I could to hold myself back, “You have two daughters, Madam. It is a shame you do not chose to recognize that, but if you do not get out of my way in five seconds, I will make sure the banks that hold all your debts recall their loans. You will lose everything.”
It took a second for the threat to sink in, another to realize I meant every word, and a third to convince herself I was more than capable of accomplishing exactly what I had threatened. “Get up!” she shouted in a panic to her clueless daughter. “Get the hell up.”
Barely able to contain my disgust at the ugliness of human beings, I went after April. I reached her just as she had hailed a cab. She already had the door open, but before she could get into it, I caught her arm and pulled her towards me.
She slammed into my body. “Let go of me,” she yelled and put up a fight, but she was no match for me. I waved the driver off and I dragged her to the back of my waiting Bentley. As I pulled the door open, she stopped to glare at me.
“Get in,” I grated.
She refused to move.
“I seem to be the only one that you have no problems defying.”
She got into the car then, and I slid in after her. Neither of us said a word as the car sped into the night. I drew my bow tie from my neck and flung it aside.
Eventually, she spoke. “Please let me off somewhere so I can take a cab home.” When I didn’t respond, she turned to me. “Yuri.”
I was still furious. “Your home is my house,” I grated.
My driver sped all the way home and the moment we arrived, she jumped out of the car and started running at breakneck speed towards the house.
I got out and went after her.
She headed straight to her room, retrieved her luggage from the closet, and began to throw her things into it.
I grabbed the bag from the bed and flung it so hard it crashed into a free-standing mirror and shattered it to pieces.
She gazed at the chaos in shock, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.
“Am I a joke to you?” I snarled.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Why are you packing your things?”
“Because I want to leave.”
“Why do you want leave?”
“I would have thought it was obvious.”
I slammed the door shut behind me, and fought to control my breathing. “Answer me!” I roared
Suddenly, tears filled her eyes. “What do you want from me?”
“Let me rephrase my question. Why don’t you want anything from me?”
She stared at me hopelessly. “What can you give me?” she asked. “Besides a broken heart?”
Silence.
“I thought so,” she taunted. “What do you want to hear, Yuri? Or what do you want to see? You want to see me crazy in love with you? Worshipping the very ground you walk on, or crazed with jealousy, like tonight, when that bitch fearlessly came to ask for the seat beside you?”
They shared the same mother. I wondered if she realized it. “And you got up,” I reminded her bitterly. “So easily.”
“I have no place in your life Yuri. Isn’t that what you would prefer? A fuck toy? Hmmm?”
“A fuck toy. That’s rich. I invited you to accompany me and you treat me like I am nothing,” I bellowed. I couldn’t believe that these words were coming out of my mouth. “You gave me up to a stranger without a thought. Where did your insurmountable pride go?”
“It disappears,” she said. “When people ask me for things that don’t matter.”
“Or yeah? And when it comes to falling asleep in my arms? Can’t do that can you? Is it because it matters?”
She took a step back. “What if I fall in love with you?”
I glared at her. “I want you to be in love with me.”
She looked stunned. “What?”
“Yes, I want you to fall in love with me.”
“For what? So your ego can feel good about another conquest?” she demanded aggressively.
“No, because I want to take care of you.”