Chapter 3 - Rodion

“What do you mean, no?” I snarl. “She just agreed it was fair.” I wave my hand in her direction, gesturing to her. She throws me a heated glare, her eyes piercing and bright.

“Excuse me. Do not speak about me as though I’m not standing right here,” she snaps, annoyed and looking like she wants to rip my head off.

Leon and Yefim turn to each other and stare in disbelief, neither knowing what to say.

Anya sighs loudly, letting the breath slowly out of her lungs. “Our families are already joined. We already have an alliance. But I agree with Rodion that it is fair for one of the Kuznetsovs to marry a Dubrov of their choosing. Obviously,I am the only unmarried one in the family, so it has to be me.”

Leon pulls his mouth tight. “What about your brother, Rad? Or Roman?” he tries his luck. “One of them can maybe marry a Dubrov instead?”

I don’t get what the difference is to him.

Again, I get the feeling like I want to punch his teeth in. “I am the leader of this family. It will be me, not my brothers,” I say forcefully.

Leon turns to Anya. Practically pleading with his sister to see reason. “You don’t have to do this Anya, we can come up with another plan, something else, you are our sister and—“

“And Raisa is his sister,” she says calmly. “What is your point, Leon?”

I sit down. It seems that she is determined to accept this arrangement and I really don’t need to be arguing on my own behalf. What in the world is happening right now? The last thing I ever would have expected was for her to agree with me and then defend the idea against her brothers' disapproval.

Every single one of them is clearly dead set against this but Anya is not letting them handle the situation. She has full control of it.

Does she like me?

Has she liked me all along?

I suck my cheeks in to hide the grin that is threatening to spread across my face. I don’t want them to think I’m being arrogant or spiteful by sitting here smiling. I have to hold my emotions back and stay in control of myself.

Anya stares at each of her brothers, waiting for any of them to try and argue again.

Oleg stands up, wanting to add to the conversation for the first time. Of all the people in this room, he is the last one who has a right to disapprove of this.

“Anya, this isn’t a small decision and I just want to be sure that you understand what you’re agreeing to. “

“This conversation is over, guys. I will go ahead with the arranged marriage. No one is forcing me into this, and I am doing it of my own free will.” She is standing tall with the palms of her hands flat on the table. She looks powerful in the tightly fitted grey suit that hugs her fuller curves and accentuates her perfect body. With an attitude as strong as the one she is carrying, no one can mess with her. Not even her brothers.

She looks fucking sexy. I know I’m staring, and I shouldn’t be, not now during such tense negotiations.

I clench my jaw, still determined not to interfere in this discussion.

There is no need. She is handling this perfectly.

She definitely wants me, and it’s all become apparent right now. All this time I’ve been watching her I thought she despised me.

I couldn’t be happier learning that I was wrong. All of her coy, bitchy coldness was just a game. She was playing hard to get.

What a pleasant surprise this is.

The boardroom is heavy with tension, though and her brothers are furious. They are all standing up and getting ready to leave. The conversation is over.

“Thank you for the meeting,” I say. Alexei glares at me with anger. Oleg has his back to me, and Leon clenches his jaw tightly.

“Indeed,” Leon mutters, turning his back on me and walking out.

He’ll get over it.

So will the rest of them. Just like my brothers and I had to get over it when Oleg married Raisa. We still suspect that she wasn’t keen on him from the start—that something happened there that we would not have been very happy to find out. But I guess it doesn’t matter at this point because it ended up with her being very happy.

And nowI am about to get what I’ve wanted for a while.

Anya Dubrov is going to be my wife.

Her brothers leave one by one and Anya remains standing at the table. She waits, patiently, until we are the last two left in the boardroom.

I grin at her, standing opposite her at the table.

“And here I thought you didn’t like me,” I say, walking around the table to stand next to her. I look down at her with a different perspective on who she is. There is so much more respect now.

Her bright, caramel eyes glare back up at me and I narrow mine towards her. But why does she look so pissed off?

“I don’t like you, Rodion. I’m certainly not doing this for you,” she snaps, just as heated as she was with her brothers.

“ What? Why did you agree to marry me then?” I say, shocked.

“Because it is, unfortunately , fair. And you know as well as I do that you are going to continue being a royal pain in the ass , throwing your little tantrums and making it difficult for everyone until you get something you want out of this—something you believe is fair. Which is apparently to marry a Dubrov.”

“Excuse me,” I snap. “Tantrums? Who the hell do you think you are talking to, girl?”

I was clearly wrong about her. She does not like me. She was not playing hard to get. She’s just a spoiled brat who needs to be put in her place.

“I think, boy , that the sooner you understand that I’m doing this for my family—and for Raisa—the easier it is going to be for both of us. In public, I assure you things will be smooth and appear legitimate. But behind closed doors, I actually want nothing to do with you. I don’t care about you at all. I don’t care what you do. This marriage will be entirely for show.”

I feel anger brewing in my chest, growing and overflowing into the rest of my body. My fists clench at my sides. My jaw muscles feather.

“No wonder you’re still single. With an attitude like that, no one would want to be around you. You don’t even know me, Anya, yet you want to treat me like trash. You and the rest of your family—you look down on everyone that isn’t your own blood. The world is bigger than your family.”

“No, you’re wrong. My family means the world to me. So, after this wedding, I expect you to start treating them better. You are so busy worrying about your insecurities that you project them onto us—you think we look down on you. We don’t. It’s just your perspective and it results in you being a total asshole most of the time.” Fuck, she’s feisty and full of it and still so fucking sexy.

My fists are clenching and unclenching at my sides as I try to disperse some of my frustration. She is so cocky and full of fire. I have never had to deal with a woman like her before. What have I really gotten myself into here?

I’m starting to wonder if I should regret my decisions—but even in the middle of this very tense argument, my entire body is alive with potent desire.

Her long, dark lashes frame those fierce eyes perfectly and her luscious pink lips, even turned down at the corners, are made for me to press my mouth over.

I want to grab her right now and bend her over this boardroom table. It’ll help her understand who is going to be in charge in this marriage—because she is going to be very surprised to find out that it’s not her.

I realize how close I am standing to her when she places her hand on my chest and pushes me away. “And there will be no intimacy ,” she says, but her eyes trail up and down my body.The way her breathing hitches betrays her words and I can see she wants me. Maybe she just hasn't realized that what she feels towards me, this anger, this tension—it’s her craving me.

“We’ll see about that,” I chuckle and it rolls from my lips like a dark taunt.

She shakes her head, sighing heavily.

“I’m leaving. Please, get out of my way,” she snaps, short and abrupt.

I take a step to the side, letting her pass, my eyes devouring her body as she does so.

Just when she reaches the door, I call her name, forcing her to stop.

“Anya?“

“What?”

“You will be moving into my mansion once we are married.”

She stares at me with annoyance. “Why not my penthouse? Why is it automatically assumed it will be your place we move into?”

“Well, perhaps you should invite me to your place tonight and we can see whose place is better?” I say seductively.

She sucks her cheeks in and spins on her heels. “Whatever. Your mansion is fine. What difference does it make anyway? I’ll see you at the wedding,” she snaps as she marches away from me, her curvy hips swaying from side to side.

Fuck.

She’s far too sexy.

She is going to make the perfect wife.

She might be a firecracker, but she is also a diamond—even if she is a little rough at the edges with that attitude.

I walk back to where I was sitting and gather my things, slipping my phone into my pocket and my leather binder of paperwork under my arm.

I have a wedding to plan and invites to send out. I doubt the Dubrovs are going to be very willing to help with all of that, but I can handle it. I want everyone there and apart from her brothers, no one will have any idea that it is a purely arranged marriage. It will appear as legitimate as Oleg and Raisa’s marriage.

I head out of the building and down the street to where I parked my car. I feel satisfied in ways I couldn’t even have imagined were possible. When I put forward the suggestion that I be allowed to take Anya as my wife, I did not expect it to really happen. In fact, if she hadn’t been there today, it wouldn’t have happened. Her brothers would have fought me to the ground before agreeing to that. We would have had a massive fight, tension would have increased from every direction, business would have been affected.

Her being there—it was unexpectedly perfect.

***

Over the next week I hurry through wedding arrangements while also running the business and trying to keep my siblings in order.

It’s overwhelming and chaotic, but I need to stay focused on everything that is going on. I must keep control over all aspects of my family and business.

My most important thought is that the wedding has to be extravagant, but it also has to be done as soon as possible before anyone has a change of heart. I believe Anya will stick to her word, but I don’t want to take any chances. I think her brothers are doing their best to talk her out of it.

My brothers think I’m crazy and Raisa is upset with me for forcing Anya into this situation, but they are all helping me organize things regardless of how they feel about it.

On the business side of things, for the alliance, we are in agreement that it will be very beneficial for our family but my brothers are worried that I am taking on too much with a girl like Anya.

Renat and Roman referred to her as a ‘problem I really don’t want’.

Rad thinks she is a bitch. Just straight up full of herself and spoiled.

Rigor and Ruvim seem to be the only ones who don’t have anything bad to say about her, simply commenting that they don’t know her well enough because she has never bothered to speak to them at any of the events we’ve attended together.

I don’t think they see her the way I do. That passionate strength. The confidence and determination. Her bubbly, wild and fun nature. I’ve been watching her for a long time now. I’ve seen her in so many different situations. I know her better than any of them do.

I’m completely sure I want her.

Even with that hot-tempered side— I want her.