Chapter 20 - Pearl

"Behave yourself," Maxim says before taking off across the room, striding over to a man standing beside the bar. I roll my eyes and take a seat at our table, looking at the name cards.

It's been two weeks, and my husband has said the bare minimum to me. Hell, we haven't even been intimate in a week, maybe the entire two.

There's something wrong. I don't know what. He doesn't want to talk about it, and I can't say that I blame him when I dodge his questions at every turn.

I reach for the champagne flute, taking a long sip. Maybe it's time that I start talking to him. Perhaps not about the truth of my past, but maybe I owe him an explanation.

The more he ignores me, the more I think that I should be with him. Maybe I should show him some understanding or comfort him as he is dealing with whatever it is. But I don't know if that's what he is waiting for. I don't know how I can help him.

These days, our lives are so different from each other that there's no seemingly easy bridge between them.

I spend most of the days sitting inside the house, messaging back and forth with Aesha when she can get a minute. Work has been busier for her too though and I'm starting to feel alone in the world.

"Mind if I sit for a minute?" a woman asks, her black gown trailing behind her as she sweeps out one of the chairs beside me and sits down.

"Not a bit, you are more than welcome. My husband's off over there making work connections."

She laughs and crosses one foot over the other, kicking off her heels for a moment. "I hate these events. I spend most of my time coming to them and it's always Elena into this and Elena that. I don't ever have a minute to sit and enjoy myself. Maybe listen to some music, maybe find a hot guy to dance with."

"Pretty sure if I got up and tried to dance with anybody my husband would rip his head off right now" I cast a wistful look over at Maxim. And though the words once would have rung true, now they sound a little false.

I don't know if he still wants me.

Elena smiles. "Which one's your husband?"

With my champagne flute and still hand, I raise one finger pointing across the room to Maxim. "Over there in the suit with tattoos coming up at the collar. And the five o'clock shadow."

"You did well for yourself." Elena winks and reaches for another one of the champagne flutes in the middle of the table. She holds out her glass. "Here's to having a hot husband."

Laughing, I clink my glass against hers.

"Now my question is, what are you sitting here looking like this when your husband is over there."

"Marital troubles, the usual."

"Not possible. You're too hot for that man to not be crawling on his knees to you and begging your forgiveness for whatever he's done."

I nearly spit out the sip of my drink I've just taken. "You don't know him if you think he's going to crawl across the floor to me and beg for forgiveness. He's much more that kind of guy to throw me over his shoulder, drag me out of here."

"Well, now there's nothing wrong with going full caveman every now and then." Elena smirks and slides her heels back on "So. What's it like to be where married to an Orlov? I've heard a lot about the broad, but none of it's good."

"I haven't made up my mind yet. We've only been married for a few months. At this rate, though, it looks like we're heading for divorce. I don't know what's going on with him lately, but he doesn't seem to want anything to do with me, which means that I get to sit over here for the rest of tonight while he schmoozes."

Elena gets to her feet, reaching for my hand, and hauling me to mine. "You're not going to sit over here and sulk all night. You're a beautiful woman. I'm sure you're intelligent. Which means that you're going to go over there and you're going to make him see what he's missing."

"Maybe you're right about that. Before I got married, I was a lot more confident than I am in this moment. My husband was giving me the time of the day. I wouldn't care and I would have gone on about my life doing whatever I pleased. I would've thought myself lucky."

"Love makes fools of us all."

"I don't know if I would call it love, more of an arrangement."

"I saw the way you're watching him," Elena says as she loops her arm around my waist, pushing me forward through the crowd. "If you're not in love with him already, you're halfway there, so you might as well go across this ballroom. Show him what he's missing. And if he doesn't get his act together? Make him regret it."

"All right, okay. I'll go over there. If it doesn't work though and you see me sprinting out of here later grab a bottle of wine and come find me."

"I think I can manage that. Now get your man."

Holding my head high, I stride around the ballroom, weaving through the couples and starting to dance with each other. Whispers pass about why I'm not with my husband or why he's barely looked my way all night. People who know Maxim exchange long looks with each other, watching as I get closer to him.

I'm stopped in my tracks when a man bumps into me, his arm brushing against mine hard enough to send me stumbling back step. His hands shoot out, grabbing me by the wrist and holding me in place. "Nicolo wants to see you. He's outside."

The man disappears as quickly as he appeared, mingling into the crowd around us.

A pit opens in the bottom of my stomach. I've been avoiding a meeting with Nicolo. He sent me a text two days ago telling me that he had a plan. He was ready to take Maxim down.

I broke the burner phone that day before burning it in the fireplace later that night. The debris from that phone is now sitting at the bottom of the lake, never to be found. There's no way I can go through with killing Maxim. I'm not ready. Even though I know it's a bad idea, I ignore what the man said and continue over to my husband.

One of the men with Maxim nods to me. As I approach and he turns, his gaze drags up and down my body, taking in the deep red dress. His eyes lock on the plunging neckline.

"I thought you were going to be waiting for me at our table," he says, stepping away from the men he's with without another word to them.

"I got tired of waiting at the table. To be quite frank, I got tired of being ignored."

He takes me by the hand, grip a little tighter than I'm comfortable with, dragging me through the room and out the back doors. "We're not doing this here. If you want to fight, we're going to go home and we're going to have it out."

"I'm tired of fighting, aren't you?"

My shoulders slump, the anger that was bubbling to the surface slowly cooling down.

Maxim sighs and lets go of my hand, turning to face me, raking through his messy strands of hair. "I don't know what you want from me. I've done everything I can to make you trust me. I've given you a lovely home, giving you money to spend. I've given you a staff. I've promised you your safety. You have your freedom. What more can I give you?"

"I was thinking that I could give you something. Answers. I don't know, I'm tired of going home at night after spending some time with Aesha and coming to find an empty house. My husband has gone to who the fuck knows where."

"Funny you haven't acted like this is a marriage, but now you want to." Maxim throws sharp words, cutting me down to the quick. He shakes his head, storming around the side of the house the party is being held at heading for the parking lot." You don't get to just come around to my business dealings because you're feeling a little ignored."

"Maybe I won't have to come demand your attention if you just come home."

"And what am I coming home to? It's no better than what you do. I come home to a wife who doesn't give a shit that I'm in the door. Hell, you don't even come to argue with me for the sake of arguing with me anymore."

"I thought you didn't want me to argue with you," I say, hurrying to keep up with him even as my heel catches between cobblestones and twists the sides slightly. I yelp as I fall, my head falling against the side of the house.

He spins immediately, crouching down beside me, cradling my ankle in his hands. His touch is surprisingly gentle given the current situation. "We're a fucking mess."

"I don't think we have been anything other than one giant shitstorm when we've been together. But I used to think it was worth it. I still think it might be."

"What are you saying right now, Pearl?" He shifts my ankle this way and that in his hand, making sure that nothing is wrong with it before he stands, helps me to my feet, and checks my head over. Apart from a dull thud, there's nothing wrong with it.

"Take Me Home. I'm tired of fighting too."

He studies me with that stare that seems to go right through me. I let him. If he wants to strip back every single layer of who I am and who I've been, he can.

"No more fighting," he says, taking my hand, and lacing his fingers with mine as we head to the parking lot. "We're starting over in this marriage."

He leads me over to the black McLaren sitting at the edge of the parking lot, opening my door, and waiting for me to get inside.

"What's wrong?" I ask when he hovers with the door open a little too long.

"I thought I saw something, but it must have just been somebody sneaking off for some alone time." Maxim slams the door shut and jogs around the car, getting in beside me before peeling out of the parking lot.

We leave the party behind, driving through the suburbs until we get to the highway. He drums his fingers on the wheel as we come to a red light, the last one before we take off into the oblivion that stretches ahead of us.

"You know, I've been thinking," Maxim says, his tone slow, his words even and measured. "I've been thinking that it's time you move into my room instead of having one of your own."

"What else have you been thinking about?" I put my hand on his thigh, fingers trailing closer to his cock.

He puts his hand over mine as the car shoots forward. "I wanted to get to know you since the moment I met you. You've done nothing but make that difficult. When we get home tonight, for every answer you give me, for every question I want to know. I'll give you an orgasm."

"Oh, so now you're bribing me with orgasms. You seem to think highly of yourself, don't you?" My tone is light and teasing as I unbuckle my seat belt to lean over, kissing his fluttering pulse. "How about instead of sex, we just sit and talk?"

The suggestion is a bold one, and I know that once we start digging into my past, I'm going to have to tell him who I am. I'll have to talk about my father's death and everything that's happened between then and now.

Maxim might kill me when he finds out that I was planted in his life to begin with. That our meeting wasn't by chance.

I think that telling him might be worth the risk though. I don't want to keep living having to hide my secrets from him.

"You need to buckle up right now," Maxim says, his tone deadly. "Right now, Pearl, I don't have time to argue with you, girl. Sit your ass down, buckle up, and hold on."

I do as he says, shooting backward in my seat, slamming down, and pulling the seat belt back across my body. "What the hell is going on?"

"Whoever I thought was just outside the party is following us."

I look in the mirror, searching for the car behind us. Headlights shine in the distance, but they're growing closer and closer.

My heart seizes in my chest. The road around us is inescapable. It's surrounded by thick trees growing too close together to drive a car through.

"We didn't bring security tonight," I say, gripping the seat as Maxim wheels the car around, shooting back the other way.

The car behind us turns with them chasing us down.

"Fuck," Maxim says, slamming his hand on the wheel. "Get down."

I obey him immediately, ducking down in my seat, and holding my hands over the back of my neck.

Gunshots ring through the air before the car starts to careen to the side.

"He shot out our fucking tires," he says. "I'm going to keep driving, but we're not going to make it. None of my men are close. And the car is gaining on us. When they catch up. It's going to be a firefight. You need to be ready to run if I tell you to run."

"I'm not just going to leave you."

"You can't shoot well enough to help me."

I keep my mouth shut, leaving the space to focus as he slams down on the accelerator, the car shooting forward despite the tire that's rapidly losing air.

More gunshots crack through the air around us before the car starts to spin faster. As we slip down the side of the road, I know that this is the moment I'm going to have to get out and run. Maxim looks over at me and unbuckles my seat belt, throwing it aside. "Jump!"

I throw open the door, rolling away from the car as it sails into a tree. Darkness surrounds us, but there's a dim light glowing from the road. A shadowy figure starts to move toward me, and I squint as I back up, crawling toward the nearest tree and hoping that it's enough to hide me.

Maxim's face comes into view as he gets closer, keeping his body close to the ground. "Are you okay? Did you hurt anything?"

I hold out my arms, looking at the small cuts from the twigs I rolled on. I've got a few scratches but nothing too bad. He crouches in front of me and it's then that I see the gash across his forehead, blood dripping down the side of his face. "Good. I don't know who the fuck is chasing us. You need to hide."

"I'm not going to do anything without you."

Maxim kneels beside me. "Is it broken or is it just sore?"

"I think it's sore, but I'm not going to be able to run on this. You're going to have to go."

"You're more insane than I thought you were if you think I'm going to fucking leave here without you, Pearl." Though it should be a sweet sentiment, his words blur together. He sways to the side.

"How hard did you hit your head?" I ask as I crawl toward him.

"I'm f … fine," he says, but the words come out jumbled masses. He tilts to the side, head smashing against the ground before I have the chance to catch him.

Before I can check him, twigs crack in the distance, but they're growing louder. My chest tightens as I work the gun from Maxim's hand, flicking off the safety after checking the magazine.

Even though it hurts, I get up. I drag Maxim over to a bush, leaving him in front of it and then hiding behind it. The only way I'm going to be able to get us out of this alive is to figure out how many men there are and kill them all.

More twigs crack, getting louder and louder, but only one man appears I squint through the darkness and it's then that I see it's the man Nicolo sent to deliver his message at the party. The man points his gun at Maxim, groaning when he sees him passed out on the ground. "I was hoping you were going to be alive. I was promised a fight."

Before the man can pull the trigger, I stand up behind the bush, gun aimed straight between his eyes.

He chuckles and shakes his head. "What do you think you're going to do? Nicolo will find out. You'll kill me, he'll know you're a traitor. Hell, I'm sure he already thinks you are."

I say nothing, pulling the trigger instead, shoulders sagging when his body hits the ground. Blood soaks into the dirt as a phone starts ringing. It's not mine. I didn't bring it this evening knowing that Nicolo would be messaging me, trying to get a hold of me.

I quickly search Maxim's pockets until find his phone. I slide my thumb across the screen. Yegor.

"Where is Maxim? Tell him that I'm in the car and on the way."

"Well, you're a little bit late on that." My voice wavers. I scrub the tears from my eyes, looking at Maxim with the blood still seeping from his head. "You need to send somebody to me right now."

"What's happening? Pearl, tell me what's happening. I've got somebody on the way. I'm getting in the car now, but you need to tell me what's going on."

"Just get here. He might not make it."