22. Emzee

EMZEE

CHAPTER 22

L et’s be honest. I had fantasized about hooking up with Ford Malone ever since I was sixteen years old. In my mind, we’d done it in every position possible, in every possible location, giving each other an infinite number of orgasms. Mine, real. His, imagined.

But no matter how extravagant the fantasies I’d conjured about having sex with Ford were, nothing came remotely close to the reality of what had happened between us a few days ago. Whenever I thought about that night, which was admittedly far too often now, I got wet instantly. My lower belly would tighten, and I’d have to squeeze my legs together against the hot ache I felt for him. For his cock. It was hard to focus on anything other than my vivid daydreams about all the things we’d done. Especially since the pleasant soreness between my legs had lingered, making me shiver with memories of Ford every time I touched myself.

He hadn’t left my place until early the next morning, though it was less a result of him falling asleep afterward than the fact that we couldn’t stop banging each other until the sun came up. We’d attempted to take a shower together at one point, intending to rinse the sweat from our bodies, but had ended up fucking against the tiled walls, Ford taking me again from behind.

Soon after that he had left, hair still damp, but he had been smiling. So had I. It was still hard to believe that my first time hadn’t turned into a complete and awkward disaster the way I’d always feared. There was definitely some wisdom to waiting for the right person instead of being in a rush to get it over with—at least, it had worked out well for me. I knew not everyone had the privilege of making that choice, though, and I was beyond grateful for it.

“You almost ready?” my assistant Brielle asked, bringing me back to reality.

“Yes. We’re good to go,” I said, resisting the urge to fan my face.

I had been standing by the equipment table for the last few minutes, completely lost in dirty thoughts. Brielle frowned, searching my face.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look a little pink. You’re not coming down with a fever, are you? I can’t get sick. I’m going on vacation next week. Can I get you a water?”

“I’m fine,” I said, feeling my face get even hotter under her scrutiny. Brielle was the perfect assistant for me, usually—high energy and attentive to every last detail. But she was a lot to handle when I was off my game. “Just sweating in here, is all. Water would be great.”

I had a feeling that I could dump that water over my head and it still wouldn’t cool me off enough. I gave myself a mental slap and tried to refocus on the work at hand.

Today I was running a standard photo shoot at Danica Rose Management. The agency kept a studio on one of the upper floors, mostly for taking headshots of newer models or updated photos for the portfolios of more senior talent. I occasionally used the space myself, but only when I needed more controlled lighting at my disposal than what I could manage at my loft.

With a cool bottle of water deposited in my hand, I got my lenses in order and prepared to start shooting. It occurred to me that Galina might like to be on set to practice working directly with new models, and I made a mental note to invite her along next time as an official photographer’s assistant so she could get some hands-on experience and punch up her resume.

The first half of the day was a complete success. We sped through our to-do list of new headshots, and I even got a few of the models to agree to come back at the end of the day for some more experimental shots I had in mind for my personal portfolio.

We were just about to break for lunch when I realized we had an audience.

It wasn’t Ford this time, but the visitors were just as unexpected.

My brothers.

I waved at Stefan and Luka as they stood near the doorway, watching. They nodded, but neither of them smiled as they continued what appeared to be a very serious conversation.

My stomach churned with nerves as I tried to focus on wrapping up the current shot on my list. Even though the studio was in the office building where my brothers clocked in every day, they didn’t generally poke their heads in when I was working. Yet today, they both had.

Something was up.

Had the Lunch Vault been broken? Did my brothers know I’d lied about the true nature of my relationship with Ford? I trusted my sisters-in-law and didn’t want to believe they’d spill my secrets, but I couldn’t think of any other reason Stefan and Luka would come here.

“Let’s break for lunch,” I called out, anxiety rushing through me as the room emptied out. As soon as everyone was gone, I strode over to my brothers to confront them.

But before I could speak, Stefan said, “We need to talk.” His voice was tense.

Crap. “What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound neutral.

It was ironic they’d find out about my sham with Ford now, right when I was starting to think that something real was actually happening with him. The way he’d wrapped his arm around me after we’d had sex, and then brought me tea, and actually spent the night at my place…it felt like it was all adding up to something, and I prayed I wouldn’t be asked to pull the plug on my fake wedding. It seemed preposterous, given that both of my brothers had had arranged marriages. Plus, I was an adult who could marry—or fake marry—whomever I wanted. Still, they were intensely protective. Especially when it came to me and my perceived honor.

Except that wasn’t the issue at all.

“It’s the Russians,” Stefan said. “The threats are still coming.”

Luka nodded somberly.

My heart dropped. I was relieved that my brothers didn’t know what was going on between me and Ford, but in the haze of everything that had been happening, I had barely given a thought to the Bratva and the enormous ax they were holding over our heads.

Panic must have been written all over my face, because Luka was quick to jump in.

“We don’t want you to worry about it,” he said.

“Not worry about it?” I asked. “This affects our entire family, and our business.”

“Look, Em,” Stefan said. “We wanted to keep you in the loop, but at the end of the day, they aren’t your problem. We are handling it. Leave everything to us.”

“That’s right,” Luka cut in. “The whole point of this talk was that we wanted to be sure you weren’t worrying yourself about it when you should be focusing on your wedding.”

“I know,” I said with a sigh. “I’m trying to do that.”

I didn’t believe the situation with the Bratva was under control—not by any means—but I knew that this was their way of taking care of me. It was touching. And even though I didn’t love being shut out of the conversation, I also knew that there wasn’t much I could do.

“Serious stuff aside, we also came to talk about the good stuff,” Stefan said.

I raised my eyebrows. “Like what?”

“You know what,” Luka said, nudging me with his elbow. “How’s our baby sister feeling about approaching Married Life?”

He waggled his eyebrows, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Aren’t you excited?” Stefan asked. “Both of our marriages were arranged. We don’t know anything about actual courtship. How’s it all going? Spill it.”

Guess it wasn’t just The Wives wanting to live vicariously through me. I felt a rush of tenderness toward my brothers. It was really very sweet how concerned they were about me and Ford. Perhaps it hadn’t escaped them after all, that the majority of my previous relationships had basically crashed and burned before they even really got started. I certainly had never introduced Stefan or Luka to any of my past boyfriends. They didn’t tend to stick around long enough.

“Seriously, don’t ask me,” I said, grinning. “Ford and I have been friends for a million years. This is more like an extension of that than the whirlwind romance you seem to think it is.”

It was the closest I’d gotten to telling them the truth so far, and I felt guilty for continuing to hide the fact that Ford and I had merely entered into a formal and legally binding agreement rather than an actual relationship. Especially considering that my brothers were going to be spending a lot of money on the whole charade…and that The Wives already knew what was really going on. Should I tell Stefan and Luka?

“You have to be at least a little excited about the wedding details,” Luka insisted. “You have an artist’s eye, after all. Did you pick out your colors or whatever?”

I laughed out loud again. “You’ll have to talk to your wives about that. They’re the ones planning everything, more or less. Though I am allowed to exercise a veto. And I said no pink.”

Stefan gave me a grin. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a black and white wedding, knowing you. Our own little Wednesday Addams.”

“We’ll see what Tori thinks about that,” I said.

As they rattled on about how happy they were for me, I continued wrestling with the possibility of shattering their illusions via the very unromantic truth about my engagement.

“Ford’s a great guy though,” Luka was saying. “I’m glad it’s gonna be him.”

“Hmm?” I said, realizing I’d zoned out.

“You know we love him for you as a human and all that, but even more so business-wise,” Stefan added. “I don’t think I could have chosen better if I’d chosen for you.”

Both of my brothers laughed and I joined them, hoping they wouldn’t pick up on how forced my chuckle was.

“But all jokes aside, seeing you happy is really the best part,” Stefan said. “It’s been a rough year.”

“It has,” I agreed, all of us sobering up as the shadow of our father’s misdeeds loomed over us. “I really am happy, though.”

It wasn’t a complete lie.

“I’m glad,” Luka said. “God knows what Dad would have had planned for you.”

“He wouldn’t have given me any choice,” I said immediately. “In fact, I’m sure he already had someone picked out. Someone who would have benefited him and his plans.”

Both of my brothers nodded, their expressions dark.

“He really fucked with all of our heads, didn’t he?” Stefan mused.

It was a rare moment of honesty. None of us liked talking about how hard it had been, growing up with Konstantin Zoric as our father. Not just because he was a workaholic who was rarely home, too busy hiding his other life as a sex trafficker from us to act like an actual parent—but because we hadn’t had a mother or any other close relatives to balance it all out.

Our mom had died when I was just two years old, too young to remember much of her, but my brothers had been old enough to remember her warmth and her laugh, how she’d loved painting. How much she’d truly loved us all. I wished I had even one single sweet memory to hold on to the way my brothers did.

But in the end, her love couldn’t protect any of us from the monster that our father became. We never got to see how real love—and loving relationships—worked. It was amazing we had survived his controlling tyranny at all, let alone survived so well, considering how messed up we all were because of him and the long years of emotional and verbal abuse.

I knew I’d been on the receiving end of the least of it, because I was a girl, but I still bore my fair share of emotional scars from our father’s behavior.

For most of my life, I’d been the odd person out. The youngest. The quietest. The only girl. When I’d gotten bullied in school, developing psychosomatic stomach pain that kept me home too many days, the nurse finally called my father at work to report my excessive absences, which he knew nothing about. He came home early that day to ream me out and I’d broken down and admitted what was really going on. He had been furious. Not at the bullies, though.

He’d been furious at me.

“How could you let this happen?” he had raged. “You’re a Zoric—they should fear you, respect you. You need to show them who you are.”

His advice just made me feel worse. If it hadn’t been for Ford stepping in to quell the bullying, I might have never made it out of high school in one piece.

But I pushed those memories and feelings aside as I smiled up at my brothers.

“Forget him,” Luka said, clapping a hand on Stefan’s shoulder. “Just look at all of us now. Tori’s due soon, and you’re gonna be a great dad. I know it.”

“And you’ll be a great uncle,” Stefan said. “And you, Em, are going to be the best auntie a kid ever had.”

“Not to mention, Luka’s going to be a great papa himself,” I pointed out.

“You’ll be an auntie twice over! And a beautiful bride,” Luka said, a little bashfully. Probably due to the unusual amount of genuine sentiment we were all expressing, so unlike ourselves and so not in line with the way we’d been raised.

Our father had scarred all of us, but now that he was gone—locked away for life, behind bars—we all had a chance at a real life. Real love. A fresh start.

“We didn’t ask to get born into this family,” I said. “But I’m so lucky I get to have the two of you as brothers.”

“I don’t regret being born a Zoric,” Luka said. “I just wish our dad had been anyone but Konstantin.”

“He’s gone now,” Stefan said. “And we have to let the past go, as impossible as that sounds. All we can do now is just…try our best to move on, and rebuild better. Together.”

The unspoken part, of course, was that the current mess with the Bratva was the direct result of our father’s actions. But I got what Stefan was saying. He was telling us that we were in this together, that we were a family, a united front. No matter what.

In the end, I never got up the nerve to tell Stefan and Luka the truth about Ford. My brothers were so thrilled for me and my love match that I couldn’t bear to burst their bubble—and after our unexpected family bonding moment, no way was I going to admit that my happy ending was a big fat lie.

At least I had already decided that I was going to be donating my monetary wedding gifts to See Yourself’s mentoring program. That way, no matter what happened between Ford and me afterward, something good would come out of our wedding—farce or not.