FOURTEEN
With her head pounding and her limbs still weak from the adrenaline that had filled her after her altercation with Alekzander, Sacha gave up pretending to be unaffected and tapped Justin’s arm.
“I am going to use the restroom,” she whispered as the people around them continued to discuss a Republican senator who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. All Sacha was getting from the conversation was a craving for Oreos.
“Would you like me to go with you?” Justin looked around. “I lost sight of him.”
“He had a prior engagement,” she muttered, picturing him and the blonde wrapped around each other. “I will not be long.”
She didn’t bother smiling or offering an excuse to the others. She simply drifted away. It was no wonder Justin hadn’t wanted to come alone tonight. Though what her being here did for him she wasn’t sure. Could be he was still faking the boy/girl dating for his father’s sake.
As she walked through the crowd, hearing snatches of conversations here and there, Sacha vowed to watch more CNN. She was out of touch. She and Alekzander used to spend an hour on the paper every day, him speeding to the last page, her going much more slowly as she navigated through unfamiliar words. He’d always been so patient about her constant inquiries. Now, spending her days chatting with babies made it unnecessary for her to follow the depressing things going on in the world. But it also made her uninformed.
As she left the ballroom and traveled down the wide corridor, her heels tapping, a dark shape appeared right in her path. She jerked to a stop just before impact. “Excuse me.” She looked up. “I am sor—”
Alekzander.
“Let’s try this once more, shall we?” He grasped her arm and tugged her back the way she’d come. But instead of going to the main room, he pulled her through a swinging door and down another corridor. This one empty and echoing. She yanked on her arm and protested the entire way, and didn’t even care that a man she remembered as Alekzander’s friend and employee was walking in front of them as if leading the way.
“Let me go! You are such a trouble-maker! Why are you doing this? Why now? I do not want to talk to you!” Especially alone!
Markus opened a door and winked at her as she was taken through. She wanted to slap him for not coming to the aid of a helpless woman. They crossed an empty reception area and aimed for a set of closed double doors made of glass.
“So don’t talk,” Alekzander drawled. “I need to say my piece, and you’re going to listen.”
“I do not want to hear you.”
“Too bad.”
“Let me go,” she snarled. “Or I will…I will scream.”
He stopped. “If you do anything to prevent this from happening, I’ll have Maks let loose a virus that will compromise every fucking electronic file Sheppard, Lupin, and Sheppard has in their system. There must be millions.”
She stomped her foot in frustration as he threatened Justin’s firm. “Stop this, you big bully! Why would you do that to him? He has done nothing to you.”
He looked her directly in the eye. “He. Is. With. You.”
If she were a better person, she’d have told him the truth right then. She didn’t because she was mean and hurting, and she wanted him to feel the same pain she felt when he exchanged keys with women Sacha could never hope to compete with. She wanted to hack away at him the way he kept hacking at her.
And at the same time, she didn’t.
She swallowed convulsively to get past the lump rising in her throat. Until this man had come into her life, she’d done okay. Yes, she’d struggled under the weight of her grief after her parents had died, as anyone would, but she’d rallied and began to build a life for herself worlds away from where she’d grown up. She’d been an average, sane person. Now? She felt as if she were a sniveling, mean-spirited puppet, her emotions and physical reactions so easily dictated by a man who’d brutally disrespected her. And there was nothing she could do to prevent it from happening again and again because she would always gravitate toward him. Even now, his appeal was almost impossible to ignore.
“You cannot do something to Justin’s family’s law firm, Alekzander. That is not fair.”
“I can do anything I goddamn please.” His voice was laced with conviction. A new superiority was there, too, and it had a weighty darkness to it she couldn’t help but find disconcerting.
He tipped his head toward the door. “Coming?”
No. But I remember how spectacular it was when we got there together.
She gasped, and he got a clear view of her shock as that stupid thought flitted through her mind.