Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

Epilogue

ZOYA

One and a half years later…

H uge blue eyes find me across the room before they’re stolen by the bubble maker Andrik cursed to hell this morning. I swear he was on the verge of firing at it with his gun before Mikhail took over the reins of setting up the decorations for Amaliya’s first birthday party.

I’m not upset I am not picked first this time.

Amaliya is obsessed with bubbles. It is almost on par with her father’s obsession with me, which pushes my devastation at being disregarded like a broken toy to the background of my mind.

Andrik has been greeting our guests for the past hour, but not a single second has passed without me feeling the heat of his gaze. He watches me as intently now as he did when he aired his family’s dirty laundry in the bathroom of one of his many country mansions.

Or should I say my family’s dirty laundry.

I won’t lie. It was a fight not to respond negatively when Andrik explained why he had been so cold and distant after our romp in the cabana, but the attraction that forever fires between us was strong enough to slacken the churns of my stomach to manageable in under a minute.

I was wary of Dr. Leverington’s death confessions—conscious some men will say anything to stay alive—but learned soon after our reunion that every secret he exposed was true.

I am Kazimir Ellis Dokovic’s eldest daughter, and Mikhail is his firstborn son. My family lineage is centuries long. I have brothers and sisters and dozens of cousins.

Every family member I have unearthed over the past eighteen months has stripped another member from Andrik’s rapidly dwindling family tree, yet he doesn’t seem to care.

How could he when our son is running across the manicured lawns of his palatial mansion, kicking a soccer ball, while our daughter woos her party guests with her two-teeth grin?

A life no longer under the federation’s thumb is all Andrik has ever wanted.

His grandfather gave him that wish, and a newly formed government is keeping it.

The federation didn’t keep Andrik’s lineage hidden solely to force his grandfather to toe the line. Andrik’s wish to return his family’s name to the notoriety it once held was founded centuries ago. His mother’s direct bloodline with Russian royalty is why the federation shifted Luiza’s title from Andrik Sr.’s mistress to his eldest’s son’s wife.

Ellis and Luiza’s union was never about love. It was for an heir Luiza struggled to conceive since she was diagnosed with a heart condition similar to Zakhar’s just shy of her eighteenth birthday.

Under the guidance of the federation’s chief doctor, she sought assistant from a holistic doctor who specialized in fertility issues. The story gets a little murky from there.

Some say they fell in love. Others say Dr. Holtz was so obsessed with Luiza that he switched Ellis’s sperm for his own.

Andrik believes both versions of the story.

To him, love and obsession are the same thing.

I startle when a familiar voice drags me from my reminiscing. “Are these ready to go out?”

A dress with a price tag heavier than its flawless design swishes around my thighs when I spin to face Nikita. Although the USB drive Andrik Sr. handed to Andrik before his suicide exonerated me of any wrongdoing in Yulia’s murder, I still confessed my sins to Nikita.

She swears she has never once hated me for the email I sent in desperation, but she isn’t as skilled in lying as she is in detecting liars. I felt her disappointment, and I carried it for the three weeks it caused our contact to be sporadic.

The stress of worrying that I had caused irreputable damage to our friendship was enough for my obstetrician to order me to a month of bed rest.

It was my phone call to Nikita for a second opinion that reopened the communication lines. She gasped in bewilderment when I told her I was pregnant before she claimed credit for Amaliya’s conception.

I was quick to remind her that a thirty-second leg hump isn’t enough to conceive a child but that I was more than happy to give her a chance to prove my theory wrong the next time we had a sleepover.

Her laugh soothed the cracks in my heart no amount of groveling from Andrik could fix, and her reply fortified the flimsy patch job. “I told you it was you.”

We’ve spoken every day since. Sometimes multiple times a day.

The remembrance adds mushy gooeyness to my voice when I answer, “Yes. All those are ready to go out.”

When she gathers the plates of cupcakes in her hands, I snatch up a handful of napkins and stuff them into Maksim’s chest before telling them I’ll meet them outside with the real birthday cake shortly.

Maksim grumbles about being bossed around, but since he is still under Nikita’s spell as much now as he was the night they wed, he follows his wife out of my home without further protest.

We have staff who could restock the snacks table, many of them, but on days like today, when we want our home filled with family and friends, we give them the day off.

It doesn’t make the shell of our home as echoing as you’d think. Anoushka is here, and so is Konstantine, Lilia, Vanka, Mars, and Daniil. Even the driver who didn’t go over twenty when we drove Amaliya home from the hospital has made an appearance.

Everyone of importance is here. There’s just one person we’re missing.

It isn’t Ellis, as you may suspect. Shockingly, he is still a part of our lives. More because he could only react to the lies that were presented to him. He only learned the truth along with Andrik.

Ellis treated Mikhail so poorly because the federation had flipped the story of Luiza’s alleged affair onto Stasy. For over thirty years, he believed the one woman he genuinely loved had birthed another man’s child. Her alleged betrayal made him a shell of the man he could have been, and Andrik, Mikhail, and I had to suffer his heartache with him.

Although he believed Stasy had betrayed him, just like Andrik, Ellis couldn’t stay away. He hid Stasy where he thought she would be safe, underestimating how desperate my mother—who I still struggle to remember isn’t actually my mother—was to prosper in the world of the mega-wealthy.

The instant she discovered who Stasy’s late-night visitor truly was, Dina exploited her connection for all it was worth.

We still have a long way to go before the aftermath of the federation’s downfall will stop cracking the foundations I will never stop fortifying for my children, but we will get there eventually.

Andrik will make sure of it.

The efforts he’s put in to fix my relationship with Aleena is proof of this.

There are so many plot twists in our story, but Aleena’s forced involvement hurts me the most. I can’t imagine how she felt when she was made to carry a child for nine months, only to have him cruelly stripped away.

We’ve tried to make things right with her. We’ve done everything we can to take away her pain and replace it with joy, but now the ball is in her court. We could only release her from her shackles. Anything after that is up to her.

“She will be here, милая .” Andrik sneaks up on me with the agility a man his size shouldn’t have before he reminds me of his mind reading capabilities. “She is your sister and our children’s aunt. How could she not come to her niece’s first birthday?” After banding his arm around my waist, he tugs me back before pressing his lips to my neck. “They also don’t serve mедови?к until noon. Did you miss the memo that the Romanovs don’t do family celebrations without that ghastly dish?”

Romanov is our new last name. It is steeped in history, so it was the perfect choice for a direct descendant of Russian royalty.

“Until she shows up with the curdled dessert none of our guests will wish to share, how about we test page twenty-two’s stability on a kitchen counter for the umpteenth time this year?”

I swoon like crazy when he tilts in close. He’s hard, and I’m too horny to remember today isn’t meant to be about me.

“Do you think you’ll have enough time for that?” I ask as the clock in the living room of our family home chimes twelve times. Andrik doesn’t understand the definition of a quickie. “You can’t leave me hanging. You must make me come… twice . It’s in our contract.” When his lips rise against my neck, I breathe out a moan. “A verbal contract is as binding as a written one.”

One bite and my question is answered as quickly as my sassy attitude is put to bed. He won’t just hold up the agreement we made before a second set of nuptials with the obligatory newlywed kiss.

He’ll blow them out of the water.

“I think I’ll be done with three minutes to spare.”

My body goes lax when he grinds his thick cock against my ass. He’s hard as steel, and despite our backyard being filled with our family and friends, I refuse to stop the exploration of his hands as he lowers them down my quivering stomach.

I need his hands on me as much as I need air to breathe, but he’ll also kill anyone who steals my dreams from me for even a second, so it is safer for all involved for me to give in to my needs instead of attempting to douse them.

Well, that’s what my heart plans to tell my head when guilt that I’m neglecting our guests eventually surfaces.

“Fuck, милая .” Andrik breathes heavily into my neck as his fingers brush the opening of my pussy. “Is all this wetness for me?”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer.

I’d only lie, and then he’d have to punish me.

There isn’t enough time for that.

Not yet.

All bets are off when our children are asleep, though.

Until then, I’ll follow Andrik’s instructions to the wire.

It is a rarity, but I don’t want just a good life. I want an interesting one as well. A quickie with your husband in the kitchen of your palatial mansion with hundreds of guests only feet away isn’t life-altering, but it is pretty darn interesting—especially when multiple orgasms are guaranteed.

The End!