Page 22 of The Vow
It was a risk, she’d taken a huge risk there. What if he’d been abusive? Unkind? Laughed at her? Threatened to tell her family? What if he’d been rubbish? If she’d chosen to say yes to him and he’d not brought her the satisfaction she craved? She’d taken a risk alright. But it had paid off.
He’d been perfect. It had all been perfect. Just the right amount of rough. Just the right amount of smooth. He hadn’t hurt her, or laughed, or taken more than she was willing to give. In the back of her mind, she had wondered. Would he find out? Would he know that she was a virgin? Despite her front earlier, how would he react when or if he realized she actually hadn’t had sex before?
But he’d been perfect, he’d pulled away. She hadn’t come, there hadn’t been time. He brought her to the edge. She hadn’t needed the release for it to be the most erotic experience of her life. She hadn’t needed any more, being close to him, in his uniform, as well, had been enough. Like a schoolgirl fantasy, the handcuffs and everything. Having him talk to her like that, God her core clenched at the memory and she adjusted herself on the leather seat of the helicopter guiltily. He’d talked to her like a woman, like a sexual being, like someone he desired. Because shewasa woman that he desired. Not acting out of respect for her surname, who her father was, the reputation she was trying to forge for herself. He knew what he wanted and he told her. He’d said she was beautiful, he’d roared and trembled and she’d got him to come. She’d made that happen. It had emboldened her. It had boosted her. Maybe she shouldn’t need that external validation, but hell, it helped. She smiled to herself reluctantly.
Kavan was flying her. Surly and annoying. He kept flicking glances at her out of the side of his eye line. And once or twice down at her legs, bare on the leather seat. He was so gross and weird. Like a creepy cousin or uncle that you just had to put up with because he was always there.
“Are you okay, Milena?” he asked in a simpering voice.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, fine, thank you Kavan. Just… surprised. Annoyed,” she said, trying to summarize.
Kavan made a sympathetic noise in his throat. “I did try to warn your father, I did say that this wasn’t a good idea.”
Lena turned to him then. “You did?”
Kavan gave her what he clearly thought was a winning smile before returning his gaze ahead. “Yes, Milena, I have looked out for you since you were a little girl. I know what it is you want and don’t want.”
Lena blinked, surprised. Kavan was normally a snake of an ‘advisor’ to her father. Slimy, coy, a brown-nosing bastard, honestly. He’d always seemed to spoil the fun in any situation. He tailed her, under her father’s orders, whenever she and her little sister went out. He was just alwaysthere, hovering in the background like an overgrown bat. Wanting to please her father, to further cement his position as chief advisor, right hand man, consigliere, bodyguard. He and his younger brother, the equally bat-like and brown-nosing but younger Ardian. Neither of them had ever shown any alliance or friendliness towards her or her sister in the past. Kavan and Ardian frequently treated Lena and her sister like baggage. Annoying and cumbersome and something just to logistically move about.
So this conversation surprised her, to say the least.
“Well, I appreciate that, Kavan, I didn’t think you… but anyway, of course I don’t want to marry a cop, or any MC member, I hadn’t wanted to marry-”
“An outsider, I know, Lena,” Kavan cut her off.
“A… what?” Lena blinked.
Kavan shook his head. “You should be marrying into an Armenian family, a strong, hardworking man, with a respectable family name, from your own culture-”
“I am American, I was born here, Kavan-”
“Someone who can treat you well, who knows our ways, who can give you a good home-”
“But I don’t want that…” she said blankly.
“So you wouldn’t have to work, give you children, Lena-”
“Jesus, I don’t want any of that! I don’t want to get married, full stop! Not at this age! I’m in college for fuck’s sake!” she burst out.
Kavan gave her a wide-eyed look, half rage, half pity. Like she was a child who had had a naughty tantrum and clearly didn’t know what was best for herself.
She pulled out her mobile phone, and slumped down in her chair, crossing her legs and turning away from Kavan and the front of the helicopter cab. Conversation was over.
She started scrolling randomly through her phone. She shouldn’t message the cop. She knew it. It wasn’t even a thing, one and done, that’s what she’d said, that’s what he’d agreed to. She didn’t even know what she’d say. She didn’t want anything more from him. She bit her lip. That wasn’t strictly true, she’d take more of what he’d been serving up if it was on offer. She shook her head, trying to clear the downward spiral happening in her mind, straight into the gutter of dirty thoughts.
She didn’t want to marry him, God that was a ridiculous idea, she hadn’t even finished college. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, to lead him on or anything. Though, to be fair to him, he seemed pretty against the idea, too. She’d tried not to take offense from his rejection, but she couldn’t resist digging into that. Picking that scab. Forcing him to say he liked how she looked. Maybe if she texted him, she’d get an impression of how he felt… whether he really thought she was beautiful or whether he was just wanting to get off. No, she shouldn’t. She particularly shouldn’t message him to play mind games with herself.
He’d been the one to take her number though. He was at least quick-thinking. She’d been all over the place, shocked at herself, almost panicky. It was the adrenaline, she knew it, in her system. She’d gone into a fight or flight spiral. Kavan’s phone call about the helicopter being ready had burst the bubble. But reflecting on it now, she liked that he’d got her number, that she had his now, too. It put the ball in their court. It gave them both back their power, to some degree. It wasn’t just her father or the MC or whoever who could contact them, they now could contact each other. Maybe she had an ally in her fight against this marriage. From the unlikely source of her own fiancé.
She thought of the helicopter ride in. Firstly, her indignation and shock about being pulled out of her life, her college bubble, to attend some business family matter. That had irked her. She tried to pull away but her family always managed to get their claws in and drag her back. Hearing that this meeting was to meet her future husband… That had caused bile to rise up her throat and her heart to pound in her chest. No way. Her father had mentioned this over the years, the importance of a good marriage. A marriage of convenience, a marriage to cement relationships, partnerships, a key business agreement. She’d always laughed and scoffed and thought it was ridiculous. A thousand years away and something that wouldn’t possibly really happen. Her father wouldn’t follow through on such an antiquated system. He surely couldn’t. But no, he had, and worse, he had proceeded without letting her know, without involving her at all, without any kind of discussion or consultation.
And had the audacity to barge in on her private life, despite all her insisting that she was left alone at school, and dragged her out to meet the man he’d picked out for her. That he deigned himself to judge a good fit for her. It made her blood boil. So she’d been half crazy with rage and terrified about the prospect of losing her freedom when Kavan had touched the wheels of the helicopter down on the helipad of the roof of the swanky hotel. She was going to march in there and show her father, and whoever this douche of a guy who was going to be her husband, that she meant business and would absolutely not be going through with this.
She strutted down the corridor, mustering all her power, her indignation, mustering everything she had to burst in and give them all an earful.
She hadn’t expected the guy to be, firstly, unwilling himself. That knocked her ego. And secondly, good looking. Not just good looking, smoking hot, if she was honest with herself. Kavan had told her in the helicopter on the way there that it was going to be an MC member. Her heart had dropped. A dirty, dumb biker. Great. A slimy, older man. She was picturing a beer gut and a scruffy beard. So when she was met with a clean shaven, neat, police sergeant, looking as horrified as she felt, she had to admit she had been thrown off for a moment.
And then when she’d bumped into him later in the bar, and he was all cocky smiles and smooth words… she’d crumbled. So quickly, so easily, she’d given in to a wild flight of fancy. She was governed by her emotions, her mother often scolded her on it, to try to have some dignity and poise. She took after her father in that manner. And she’d decided when she became head of the Zakarian Syndicate, she would rule with her heart, as well. If people thought she was too tempestuous or quick to anger, so be it. That’s what she had people around her for. Sneaky old Kavan and his younger brother, boring mister follow-the-rules Ardian. And whoever else she wanted to appoint. Because she was the oldest daughter, she would be head of the family, when her father couldn’t anymore. She didn’t want to think of that day but he’d been prepping her for it her whole life. It had taken a lot for Jovan to come to terms with not having a son to directly inherit the family businesses, but once he’d decided Milena was up to the job, he’d done everything to train her up. And part of that, for Jovan, was having a husband. Not one who would replace her, and that is why she suspected he hadn’t gone for another Armenian family. One who could potentially worm their way in and take over. No, Jovan wanted someone who was an outsider. Someone who looked good on paper and in a suit, hovering in the background behind her.