The comment is somewhat of an insult, but I let it roll off my back. I'm used to Kazimir bashing me. I can take a little scrutiny from Timur.
"Because if this thing falls apart and the alliance goes through anyway, we need to know what we're dealing with. I don't want to be scrambling for intel after the fact." I drum my thumb on the steering wheel. "Pull everything for me. I want to know him inside and out, his business, his life, and yeah, for lack of a better term—what color boxer shorts he wears... Friends close, enemies closer... You know?"
After the few fuckups we've had in the past year, I'm not taking chances. If Timur can get me intel on the man, I can use it against him to lure his precious bride to be away.
"I'll pull what I can," he says, sounding annoyed, but he doesn’t question me. "Give me a few days."
"Thank you."
The light in front of me shifts and I'm forced to stop and wait for an elderly man walking a dog across the intersection.
"Why are you taking so much interest in this woman, Cousin?" He's cautious as he asks, and I don't answer right away because I’m asking myself, why am I so interested? Why do I feel the compulsion to know about this man so badly? Timur's quiet for a moment. "Stepan."
"Yeah."
"She's a job."
"I know she's a job," I grumble, pulling away from the light and down my street. I've never had a job I failed at or let something distract me from doing what I needed to do. So what if I let her get under my skin or like it a little too much? If I stop her from marrying Orlov and making an alliance between her family andhis, I've been successful. But I let the anger burn off as I pull up to my house.
"Let's just focus on what's important. We have too many irons in the fire to go snooping up his tree when he's not the important one."
I pull into my driveway and kill the engine. "You're right," I say. "Forget it."
"Forgotten," he responds. "I need those teams by the end of the week, got it?"
"Got it."
I punch theEnd Callbutton and sit there staring up at the front of my house wondering why Marina Belova, of all people, is getting under my skin. If it's obvious enough to Timur that I'm taking too much interest in her, maybe it should be more obvious to me.
Am I being too dismissive? Or is this tiny spark of curiosity turning into an obsession? I was just with her, and if she'd have agreed to come home, I'd never have called Timur at all. Id' be in my bed fucking her right now. So maybe that's it.
The hormones just got to me and I need to let them fizzle out a little. I'm still half-chub as it is, waiting for the arousal to wane. If it's just hormones driving me, they'll pass as soon as I've had my fill of her body. If not, I'll deal with that bridge when I come to it.
For now, I need a drink.
And a cold shower.
7
MARINA
Elira sits with her hand under the iridescent glow of the UV light, watching the burgundy polish sparkle and cure. The color she picked looks almost black under the lights, while my French tips are neater and look classier.
"I just feel frustrated," she says, chewing her wad of chewing gum. She's been sulking the entire afternoon about Dimitri breaking her heart when she is the one who broke it off with him.
"Look at it this way, girl. Pretty men are just self-obsessed. You deserve better than him, anyway." I slide my hands under the light and settle into the seat next to her. Our manicures are complete. We just have to wait for them to finish curing. Then we'll be off to the shops for some real shopping this time, unlike last week when I lied to my father to sneak out.
"You mean someone like Maksim?" The way she says his name, in this dreamy tone, makes me want to gag. I roll my eyes at her and try not to show how disgusted I am by even the mention of his name. Since meeting Stepan, every time anything to do with the Orlov alliance is brought up, I cringe.
"You can have him," I grumble, and she chuckles. Elira is my best friend, no stranger to the truth of how I feel. She's known me most of my life, since year six when Oleg Raminov kissed me on the playground at school and my father yanked me out of the public schools to put me into a private school.
"Still having cold feet?" she asks, angling her body toward me more. Her curls fall down over her eyes and she blows them upward and tosses her hair.
"I don't think it would ever be considered cold feet, Lira. I'm not nervous at all." I suck in a breath and sigh. I didn’t want to bring this topic up, but with the press toward marriage happening faster now—meetings about flowers and cakes and dresses almost weekly—it seems to loom over me like a dark cloud.
She taps her fingers on the counter under the light and nudges my knee with hers. "I'm sorry," she says softly, though she doesn't mean to apologize for my situation. It’s more that she's showing sympathy. Her family is wealthy, but it's the independent wealth that comes from legal businesses and trade. Not organized crime. She has no clue what it feels like to be forced into an arranged marriage and never will. She'll have her choice of men when she's ready to settle down.
I shrug one shoulder and bite my tongue rather than complaining again. She's heard enough complaining out of me over the past few years on this topic to last a lifetime. I need to just grow up and realize this is my fate and walk into it with my head held high.