Rough Exile

“It tells men who you belong to.” He said it with a churlishness he’d definitely picked up from Bron, but I got the feeling he was embarrassed.

“This is for our pretend engagement?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“You didn’t need to buy such a big fake ring.” It looked obscene on my finger. I was going to take someone’s eye out with it—maybe mine. “No one will believe this is real.”

“It is real. It was my mother’s.”

I swallowed. I didn’t know a lot about diamonds, but I was pretty sure the one I was now wearing would have paid for this island.

“What happened to her?”

“Vas had her killed.” He shrugged. “Officially, it was a car accident.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know her well. She was beautiful. I think she was kind, but maybe that’s only how I wish to remember her.”

“I’ll make sure you get it back after we visit your family. Maybe you should hang onto it until we actually go. It might fall off or something.” It fit perfectly, but the idea of wearing something so expensive and sentimental gave me the heebie-jeebies.

“No.”

He turned away and threw another rock. Were his cheeks red, or was it the wind?

”Is there a reason you put it on my right hand instead of my left?”

“That’s where such rings go when you are Russian. You’re in Russia and you will be a Russian wife. If we go to America, you can wear it on your other hand if you wish.”

“What do you mean? I only have a few more weeks here and then I’m going home.”

He said something in Russian, but between the language and the wind, I couldn’t make out his tone, let alone what he was saying.

“What?”

“You’re the only thing in the world that’s mine, wife. I won’t let you go.” His expression was unreadable.

Was he…joking?

It didn’t sound like a joke.

“I’m a person. You can’t just keep me,” I said, intending to sound jovial. Instead, it came out worried and weak.

“Why not?” he demanded, the words clipped. “I love you. I will give you a good life.”

The words made me happy, and that was a dangerous thing. Did I love him, too? I had feelings for him, but were they love? Attraction, yes. Fondness, yes. Would I miss him when I went home? Absolutely.

“It’s not only your decision, Ilya. I get to choose, too.”

“Then choose me. Your family is full of terrible, selfish people who don’t appreciate the sacrifices you make for them.”

“They may not be perfect, but they’re still my family. I’m a big girl. I don’t need you to rescue me from my old life.”

He chewed at his cheek, his brows a surly line. Long strides carried him away from me and he paced the shore, pushing his long hair out of his face with short, impatient movements every time the wind blew it.

”Is it because you want Bron instead?” he asked. “Because what belongs to me belongs to him.”

I blinked at him. “So that goes for your actual wife, too, not just the random whore you’re banging?”

He grabbed my arm and hauled me against him. I caught my breath at the fury in his gaze. “I don’t like that word.”

“Which one?”

“Don’t call yourself names.”

“Why not? Bron does.”

“Sometimes Bron says things when he’s talking with his dick, but that isn’t how he really feels.”

“How would you know? Is he writing secret love poetry about me?”

His mouth twisted wryly. “I doubt that, but he wouldn’t be so cruel to you unless he felt something for you.”

I shook my head. “Love isn’t supposed to hurt.”

He slid his hand up my arm and held my throat so gently I wasn’t sure if it was a threat or a caress. “But my wife enjoys love that hurts.”

The roughness of his deep voice made the pit of my stomach drop like the first freefall of a rollercoaster.

“How do you know I don’t dream about sweet and gentle lovemaking?”

“I’ve watched you come for Bron too many times to believe that.”

He kissed me, and I melted for him.

“I don’t care if you love me or not. You will stay.”

Just like that? He thought he could put a ring on my finger and declare ownership? Fuck that.

“What makes you think I’m yours? This isn’t a magic ring. It doesn’t change reality.”

“How can you refuse me?” he said with a cruel laugh. “You don’t have any way to get home. You don’t even know where you are.”

I opened my mouth to argue that I could figure it out, but many steps lay between me and getting home. Just how hard was I willing to fight to get there? He’d get bored with me eventually and send me back. There was no need for me to consider trying to swim to the mainland, right?

Besides, Bron wouldn’t really let him keep me, as though I were a stray cat.

And if Bron was also unreasonable?

When we went to visit his family, we’d be on the mainland already. Then I could sneak off and…what? Find a job? I’d probably have to do sex work and hope to make enough to pay for airfare home. Then somehow travel with no passport. Maybe I could find my way to an embassy, but I didn’t even have a phone or internet connection to look up where one was.

I had nothing here except Ilya, Bron, and their good will.

“Putting a ring on a woman’s finger doesn’t mean she’s your property.”

“No, it means she’s going to be my wife.” He pulled me close and kissed my neck, not letting go when I struggled. He bit the side of my neck, and I gasped at the unexpected pain. My body was responding to the way he was acting, and I really needed to get out of here before he took my physical responses to mean I was conceding. “Our engagement was supposed to be an act for my father, but now it’s not.”

He let me pull free. My neck was throbbing, but so were other, more treacherous parts of me.

I backed away from him, stumbling over a rock before righting myself.

“Run from me all you want. Where can you go?”