Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
She would never do that to Hadley. Her daughter might not have been planned, but damn it, she would be loved.
Her phone rang three times during the course of the afternoon—all from Sergei—and she didn’t answer it once. Whatever he wanted, he could wait. She wasn’t exactly riding high after her night with Cillian, but she felt a definite buoyancy that made her turn up the music as she cleaned and swing her laughing daughter around the room. She wasn’t ready to give up the rare good mood. Not yet.
“Mama! Again!”
She grinned and flipped the song back to restart. “My baby girl likes LMFAO? I always knew you had great taste.” She wiggled in an exaggerated way that made Hadley let loose a string of infectious toddler giggles. God, she loved that sound. She spun a circle and dipped into the water-filled sink to grab a clean plate to dry next. The apartment didn’t have a dishwasher, which wasn’t terrible since there was only the two of them, but there were days when she felt the lack.
The phone rang again, and Hadley toddled over to it. “Wait!” But it was too late. Her toddler pressed the green button, answering it. Olivia dove for the phone, scaring Hadley in the process. Her daughter instantly started crying, but she couldn’t do a damn thing about it right now. “Hello?” She slapped off the radio. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.”
“Olivia.”
Her heart damn near stopped at the silky Russian voice coming through the line. She took the phone away from her ear and glanced at it. Yep, Sergei’s number. It shouldn’t surprise her that Dmitri used his favorite minion’s phone to make this call—he wouldn’t want any more strings connecting them than strictly necessary. Why is he calling now?
She took a shaky breath and tried to kill the panic creeping up inside her. “Dmitri.” No need to ask what he wanted—he’d get around to telling her when he was damn well good and ready.
“I hear you’ve been making new friends.”
She closed her eyes. Cillian. That had to be who he was talking about—he was the only thing that had changed about her life in the last week—but that didn’t mean she was going to roll over and play dead. “New city, new friends. You know how it goes.”
“Hardly.” A pause in which she could perfectly picture him narrowing his eyes. “You haven’t accessed the money I wired into your account.”
She didn’t ask how he knew that. New York might not be the Romanovs’ in total, but enough people owed him allegiance that it wasn’t surprising he had someone at her bank. What she didn’t get was why he cared so much. She couldn’t ask him. No one asked Dmitri Romanov a damn thing. “I don’t want the money. I don’t want the strings that come with it, either.”
“Life rarely cares about individual wants. I’m surprised you haven’t learned that by now.”
She had. That was the problem. She hadn’t asked to be born as Andrei Romanov’s bastard daughter, and she sure as hell hadn’t wanted his sudden change of heart. In a world where family was everything, she’d grown up as a barely tolerated individual within the realm of the Romanovs. It had sucked, but at least she knew she couldn’t rely on anyone else but herself. To have Andrei suddenly decide that he wanted her to actually be a Romanov…No fucking way.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to ignore Hadley’s wails. “If the money is so important to you, take it back.”
“You know it’s not about the money.”
If it was, she might have just taken it. Maybe. Olivia leaned against the counter. If she could just get through to Dmitri, there was a chance he’d leave her alone. “I don’t want to be a Romanov. That was never my place, and Andrei deciding it before he died doesn’t change that.”
He paused. “I gave him my word, Olivia.”
Damn you, Andrei. You didn’t have time for me during your life. Was this just one final “fuck you” before you took that one-way trip to hell? She closed her eyes, violating her determination to wait him out. “What do you want, Dmitri?”
His voice went hard. “Next time Sergei calls, you answer without hesitation. Is that understood?”
That wasn’t an answer, but it was clear that he didn’t really care about giving her one. Big surprise there. “You don’t own me.”
“On the contrary, I own everything about you. Your freedom is a luxury that I allow. If I choose to, I can snatch it back, and there isn’t a single thing you can do about it. And your daughter…”
She gripped her phone so hard, it was a wonder it didn’t shatter. “You can fuck with me all you want. I’m an adult. I can handle it. You come near Hadley, and I’ll kill you myself.”