Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

62. Andrik

62

ANDRIK

I dip my chin in wordless gratitude to a couple offering their well-wishes to Arabella and me. Their faces are unfamiliar, but since a majority of the seats at the rehearsal dinner are filled by the financial backers of my father’s latest political campaign, that isn’t surprising.

I never mixed business with pleasure.

I can’t say that anymore.

They continue their incessant ramblings on how beautiful our future children will be while I guide Arabella into the elevator and impatiently wait for the doors to shut. I didn’t offer to walk her to her hotel suite because I am a gentleman looking for brownie points from my future wife.

My thoughts are far more sinister than that.

As the car jolts into action, I lose the last morsel of composure I have left. With the hand I used to guide Arabella into the elevator, I grip her throat and pin her to the mirrored wall. There’s nothing pleasant about my hold. Nothing admirable about it. It is the grip of a killer, and it makes her lips an instant shade of fascinating blue.

“You thought you could lie to me and that I wouldn’t find out?” I tighten my grip more, lifting her feet from the floor. “How fucking stupid do you think I am!” I don’t give her a chance to answer since it could possibly mimic what I was feeling when being introduced to the woman who hasn’t left my thoughts for a single second over the past month. I get up into her face and scream. “I asked if you knew who she was the instant she left us alone!” The way I sneer “she” ensures she can’t mistake who I am referring to.

Dina hovered for hours the day we met. I thought it was because she was one of those helicopter parents always looking out for her children. Now I know otherwise, and it makes me furious.

“You said you’d never heard of the name Zoya before, and that it was a pretty name.” I drag her forward before ramming her back, stealing the last of the air in her lungs. “A pretty fucking name! That’s what you told me while endeavoring to steal her focus!”

“Be-because…” She digs her nails into my palm, striving to loosen my hold. When her fight only has me doubling my grip, she tries another tactic. “Sh-she’s my c-cousin. I-I forgot she changed her name.”

I laugh off her lie like a madman. “A cousin with identical eyes, skin, and walk. A cousin with the same fantastic tits and sweltering waist but without the cutesy features that lower your praise from gorgeous to pretty. Is that the cousin you’re referring to, Arabella Dokovic ?”

She nods, and it shreds the last of my leniencies.

“I am not a man you lie to and live to tell the tale!” I roar, my thunderous words echoing in the tight confines of the elevator. “Tell me the fucking truth. Now! Or I will gut you where you stand.”

“But I’m your bloo?—”

I steal the words I refuse to hear seep from her lips by fully compressing on her airways. She is seconds from death. “You are nothing to me, but you are even more worthless to them. ” I don’t need to mention the federation for her to know who I am referencing. My sneer speaks on my behalf. “If you don’t learn that fast, you’ll only ever learn it one way. In death .”

Her watering eyes barely bounce between mine for half a second before she murmurs, “Ok-okay. Okay.” Tears stream down her face as she gives honesty a whirl for the first time in God knows how long. “They’re seeking a pure bl-bloodline. They want a royal lineage like back in the ancient Romanian times.” She chokes on her last word, but it doesn’t weaken the truth in her eyes. “But Zoya is infertile, so she wasn’t a good candidate.” As my hope slithers to the abyss, she discloses, “Zoya doesn’t know who our father is. They’ve kept it from her for years. I only recently found out after I tried to…” The shame in her eyes finalizes her reply.

She knows my secret. She knows I fell in love with my sister and that I’m still fucking obsessed with her, because the humiliation in her eyes while recalling the night she tried to seduce me mimics mine to a T anytime I look in a mirror.

She’s mortified, but something far more vital than dishonor is keeping her blood pumping through her veins.

The realization loosens my grip. Only by a smidge. I’m too angry to fully let go. I’m not mad that I am being continually controlled. That’s been the basis of my existence since birth. It is knowing how much the steps I must take tomorrow to save my son’s life will devastate Zoya. She has spoken fondly of her sister often, and that family ties are vitally important to her since she basically has none.

As much as I wish I could comfort her through this, that isn’t something I can do.

I don’t trust myself around her.

I doubt I ever will.

So instead of placing the entirety of the blame of my fuckups on someone else, I free Arabella from my clutch and step back.

With a sob, she falls to her knees and drags in big breaths that are sharply redrawn when I say, “Uninvite her to the wedding. I don’t care how you do it, but I want it done tonight .”

Her words are husky when she asks, “You still want to go ahead with it?”

It is a challenge, but I nod. “I don’t have a choice.”

Confident she won’t dare second-guess my authority, I exit the elevator on the next floor, bumping into one of Maksim’s paid goons on my way out.