Page 14 of His Prince

I glance down at my phone, the message from Angel looming up at me.

It’s better if I don’t answer…for both of us.

I need to keep my distance.

Nothing good ever comes from love, from caring for another.

I learned that lesson from losing my parents and my grandparents. I learned it from my dead wife.

The one whose life I ended.

I press my fingers against my lips and close my eyes, the image of my wife’s lifeless body at my feet, her blood etched across my shoes and disappearing into the dirt of the garden.

I push those thoughts away. She was a woman I’d rather have never known, never met. A love that broke something inside of me.

I’ll never love again.

Angel is only a business transaction, a way for me to gain an in with the Costello family.

It’s nothing more. It can’t be.

Though, the feel of him beneath me haunts my thoughts, the clench of his ass, how tight he was…the way he begged…

I push the visions from my mind.

No.

I won’t think of him. Not like this.

I have business to attend to. Money to make. An empire to maintain.

Because while love always dies, legacies last forever. When I’m dead and gone everyone will remember what I’ve built, the extent of my power. The Ivanov name will live on in their memories and their nightmares.

3

ANGEL

Itoss and turn in bed, my mind replaying the video chats I had with Mikhail these last few months. The way he’d listen so intently, the tilt of his head, the sparkle of his blue eyes as I poured my heart out.

But the longer I think about it, the more I realize I did most of the talking.

He was always so quiet, never revealing much about himself, and yet even still, he managed to woo me in his silence.

I’d never been listened to so intently. It validated something inside of me. And when he did speak, it was profound and sweet. And sometimes he’d say things so hot that I’d jack off right then and there, letting him watch me as I came.

His pupils would dilate, his breathing coming out harsher, whispering words of encouragement in English and Russian. But looking back, he never got himself off. The first time I’d ever heard him come was yesterday.

When he emptied himself into my ass.

I drag myself out of bed, my eyes dry and red from lack of sleep, the muscles in my body weak from exhaustion. Even so, I need to get breakfast going like I promised.

Yesterday, after staring for far too long at my phone, willing Mikhail to contact me, I ended up placing a food order, one big enough to fill the mostly unused industrial fridge in that custom kitchen of his, before marching over to the guardhouse near the front gate, letting the guys inside know I’d be getting a delivery. A large one at that.

They just blinked at me, almost as if they didn’t understand the words coming out of my mouth. They only responded when I let them know they were welcome to come into the house for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

By the time Mikhail finally arrives home, he’s going to find that instead of breaking me in his absence, I’ve made this place my home.

I hope his skin crawls when he realizes it, hope that he bursts a few blood vessels when he sees people in his house, mingling, eating, and enjoying life.