“Isaak, look at me.”
“I am looking at you.”
“No, I mean really look at me.”
Grimacing, I meet her eyes. “Is this what you want, Camila?”
She shakes her head. “Do I really mean so little to you?”
Her lips entangle with mine again. I want so fucking badly to give into the temptation. To reciprocate, to do what I’ve always done when she looks at me like this: ravage her until the heat of our passion consumes us both.
But I resist. With all of me.
Well, almost all of me. But when Cami’s hip grazes against my hard cock, she notices.
“See?” she says, her hand brushing against the bulge in my pants. “Your body gives you away.”
“Your body gave you away, too,” I snarl. “I was just too blind to see it.”
She frowns. “What do you mean?” She releases me and steps back as the air fills with tension, the heat of the secret between us.
We’ve arrived at it—the final moment.
The one where everything that’s been irretrievably broken finally shatters to pieces.
“Is there anything you need to tell me?” I ask menacingly. “Anything important you’ve forgotten to mention?”
She frowns. “N… no. What else would I need to tell you?”
The desire on her face is quickly being replaced by fear. Her body tenses and her eyes dart around the room, as though she’s trying to pull her secrets closer into her.
She’s starting to suspect that this change of heart is going to come at a price.
She’s very fucking right about that.
“The night I took you to dinner on the Thames,” I muse. “I still remember watching you dress. The way you shimmied out of your clothes… the way your skin seemed to glow…”
She looks like she’s barely breathing. “Isaak…?”
“I admired your body. It was beautiful. Every little piece of it. Even the little marks that women hate so much, it all suited you. Even those little stretch marks were beautiful to me.”
She tries to hide her panic, but it’s there, sprawled across her face. She didn’t have my kind of training in concealing what she feels.
“I didn’t think about it then. But it was right in front of me. Your body gave you away, Camila.”
She shakes her head. “No. No. No.”
I pace closer to her. “Now, little kiska… Tell me about your daughter.”
44
Camila
Inevitable.
That was the word that Bree used. Back then, it felt overblown. Now, it feels like foreshadowing. Or maybe self-fulfilling prophecy.
Either way, he knows.
He knows.
Isaak’s eyes are dark and stormy. He is terrifying as he is beautiful.
Once the shock wears off, though, I’m aware of the disappointment settling in. Because deep down, I had wished for more than anger. It’s na?ve and stupid, but I had wished for… what? Happiness? Excitement?
I should’ve known that a man like Isaak Vorobev isn’t capable of such things.
“How did you find out?” I whisper.
I’m too tired to bother denying it. Too exhausted, from my skin to my soul, to go through that whole song and dance.
“Does it matter?”
“No,” I say with a sigh. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
“What’s her name?”
His tone is hard as ice, and it makes me wonder what about this revelation has actually pissed him off. Because somehow, I’m not sure his main source of anger is about the fact that I kept Jo’s existence from him. That’s part of it, certainly. But I feel like I’m missing some aspect of it.
“Jo.”
To my surprise, he nods in recognition instantly. An ironic smile on his lips. “After Josephine March, I suppose.”
I almost smile back. No one in my entire life has ever guessed that. It figures that Isaak would be the first. “Exactly.”
“Does she live up to her namesake?”
“She’ll forge her own path,” I say. “That’s all I want for her.”
Her smirks, but his eyes remain cold. “What you want for her is immaterial.”
I stiffen. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“She’s Bratva, isn’t she?” Isaak says. “There is only one path forward for children of the Bratva.”
“She’s nothing other than my daughter. She’s not going to be used as a prop or a pawn in the games of the Bratva.”
“You’re not going to have a say in that.”
“You have no right—”
“Maxim does, though,” he interrupts.
I stop short. “I… Excuse me?”
“Maxim does have a right.”
Why the fuck would… ?
And then it hits me. Everything kind of lines up beautifully and I can see exactly what brought Isaak up here in a cold rage.
There’s no joy, no excitement…
Because he doesn’t believe that Jo is his.
“Maxim,” I say softly.
“I’m surprised he didn’t lord that one over me,” Isaak continues without noticing the change in my expression. “He fucked a baby into you. It’s the ultimate upper hand.”
I wince against his harsh words. Not just because he reduces my pregnancy down to a power play, but because the revelation seems to have sucked the humanity out of him completely.
All thought of correcting his false assumption disappears completely.
He doesn’t deserve that salvation.
So instead, I stand there, trying to think up ways of hurting him like he’s hurt me.
“Maybe he wanted to keep his child out of it,” I say. “Maybe he didn’t want her to be a power play at all. Maybe he actually has a fucking soul.”
Isaak snorts. “You really are delusional when it comes to the man, aren’t you? How did you even manage to convince him to keep the child with your sister?”
I shrug. “What’s it to you?”
“I’m curious about the plan.”
“Would you believe me if I said there was no plan?” I ask. “No, of course not. Because you see only what you want to see. You believe only what you want to believe.”
“I am impressed, though,” he says, regarding me with appraising eyes. “You managed to conceal it from me for months.”
“My daughter means the world to me,” I say resolutely. Nothing about that statement is a lie. “She’s my whole world. Anything I can do to protect her, I will.”
His eyes spark. More anger, of course, but there’s also a begrudging respect there.
“No wonder Maxim wants you back so badly.”
I shake my head with disgust. “Right. You don’t believe a man might want me because, oh I don’t know, he genuinely cares for me.”
He expression doesn’t change.
“Not every man is as cold and unfeeling as you are, Isaak.”
Not even a flinch.
And that flips a switch. I don’t want to hold back anymore. I don’t want to try and match his controlled state of calm. I’m upset and pissed and sad and emotional.