“Yes,” Sloane said, feeling waves of relief at the command in his voice. He wouldn’t just abandon her.

“Yes, what?” he growled.

“Yes, sir,” she said, shuddering with a small thrill.

“Good girl.”

The elevator pinged. “On your feet,” Nicholas said.

But before she could get up, the elevator doors opened.

“What do we have here?”

Sloane hurried to her feet and then ducked behind her husband as none other than his terrifying boss, Papa Dimitri Vasiliev himself stepped on at the floor right above the bakery.

“Just having a discussion with my wife,” Nicholas said, reaching over and placing his hand at the back of her neck again, clenching in the way that immediately settled her nerves. Even in the face of the most terrifying man she’d ever met, her mind immediately calmed and went blank.

Vasiliev had a suitcase and the beautiful woman Sloane occasionally saw around—Natasha—stood beside him, holding several more bags. Her face was blank and she didn’t look at Nicholas or Sloane.

Vasiliev, however, continued to eye both of them. Sloane dropped her eyes to the floor of the elevator as it continued the last bit to the ground floor.

No one said anything else and Sloane was relieved at the dispelling of tension when the doors opened. She and Nicholas waited for Vasiliev and Natasha to step off first. Nicholas gave her neck a reassuring squeeze and quickly whispered, “Tonight,” in her ear before following Vasiliev as he strode forward.

Vasiliev gave her one cursory look back but then all three of them walked forward down the hall towards the parking garage. Right, she remembered now that Nicholas had mentioned he was driving Papa Dimitri to the airport this morning. Good. The guy gave her the creeps and if he was out of town for a few days, all the better.

Sloane took a deep breath, clenched around the unusual lodestone of comfort and connection lodged up her backside, and told herself she could do this. Then she walked the few feet to the bakery and jumped into work. It was busy and Babulya welcomed her behind the register as they serviced the busy morning crowd of people hurrying on their way to work.

Chapter 21

Nicholas

Nicholas opened the door to the back of the SUV for Papa Dimitri, his thoughts still on his wife. She’d done so well but he hoped the appearance of his boss hadn’t thrown her off there at the end.

He wished he could send her a text right now with an instruction to help ground her, but he knew Papa Dimitri would get pissed if he got on his phone for personal use. No, he’d have to wait until after he dropped him off. But on the drive to the airport, there was nothing to stop him from dreaming up some fun games to keep his little wife occupied throughout the day.

He tried to hold his smile inside but some bit of it must have slipped out because Dimitri paused as he was stepping inside the car. “That’s some little wife you’ve got there. I see you’ve got her trained very nicely. I bet she’s a good fuck, huh? Got a hot little cunt she gives up to you to destroy every night?”

Nicholas had to fight the impulse to deck the motherfucker for talking so disrespectfully about his wife.

Instead, Nicholas just shrugged. “We’re happy, sir.” Now get in the goddamned car and don’t say another goddamned word about it.

“Happy,” Papa Dimitri smirked, shaking his head, and then stepped up into the SUV. Natasha had already climbed into the other side. She stared out the window, looking bored.

Nicholas was about to shut the door when Papa Dimitri looked down at him. “Don’t be a fool. Faithless sluts are all the same.”

Nicholas smiled tightly, gave an uncomfortable shrug, then shut the door. He was seething on the inside as he got in the driver’s seat and plugged in his phone for GPS to the airport. What a fucking asshole.

He jammed the SUV into drive and had to forcibly calm his temper as he pulled into traffic. He’d never really bothered wondering if he liked his boss or not before. The boss was just… the boss. They were what they were.

Sure, Papa Dimitri was given to fits of temper, and surrounded himself with women that he treated like shit, but that was just…what rich men did in Nicholas’s experience. They were above rules, above the law. That was the way of the world. Money talked and it ruled everything. It made men kings. And kings had never been known for their temperament or kindness, not in the entire history of the world.

Everyone else just navigated and stayed the fuck out of the way of their whims, trying to shave off what wealth and stability you could for yourself amid the corrupt systems.

Nicholas tried to shrug off Papa Dimitri’s comments like he always had. So the man was a chauvinist pig. So what? It had nothing to do with him. And he’d be gone for a week, so that was one less week of thinking about the bastard.

Tags: Stasia Black Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net