Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
“I’m so sorry—”
“She stole the man you so desperately want you’re still hopeful you can sink your hooks into him even now.” Zoya lifts my hand, sending rainbow hues bouncing across the dark wood grain the jet is fitted with. “This isn’t a I-might-take-you-for-a-ride-when-my-wife-isn’t-looking ring. This is the real deal. The ring you give your wife when you’re so fucking obsessed with her you don’t just want to sleep next to her every night—you want to sleep inside her too.”
The air hostess scoffs, pffts, and glowers at us before her shock is replaced with anger. “If I wanted him, I could have had him.”
Jealousy rears its ugly head, but before I can act on it, a voice that could only sound gruffer if he were coming sounds from behind my shoulder. “Get the fuck off my plane.”
“Mr. Ivanov.” The air hostess breathes out heavily. “I was just coming to wake you—”
“Get. The. Fuck. Off. My. Plane.” As the air hostess hurries for the exit, Maksim locks his eyes with a gentleman over her shoulder. “And you can go with her.”
“Maksim, Maria was out of line but unaware of your recent nuptials.”
His use of Maksim’s first name indicates he knows him more than a standard staff member, but that doesn’t lessen Maksim’s frustration. “She may not have, but you did.” The male air hostess tries to interrupt, but Maksim continues talking before he can. “Yet you sat back and watched her belittle my wife.” Even Zoya almost faints from how he growls “my wife.”
With how much tension is firing in the air, I am shocked when the man backs down with an apology. “You are right. I am sorry.” He drifts his eyes to me. “I apologize for any discomfort caused, Mrs. Ivanov.”
I barely dip my chin when he sinks into the plane’s galley and disappears from view.
The hostility is rife, so of course Zoya tries to barge through it. “If you ever grow tired of him, toss him my way. There’s no such thing as sloppy seconds when it comes to men.” She kisses my forehead like Maksim did at the start of our flight, hopeful it will hide her grin about my narrowed glance before she thanks Maksim for letting her tag along.
“Are you not traveling with us?” My pleading eyes say what my mouth can’t. Don’t force me to face Gigi’s wrath alone.
“Gigi is going to love him,” she says, proving she has mind-reading capabilities. “And I’ve got some matters I need to wrap up before commencing my new job on Monday.” She locks eyes with Maksim. “Ten, right?”
He jerks up his chin before telling her he will forward a job offer to her inbox later today.
She smiles like she has the world at her feet before she gallops down the jet’s stairs.
I don’t wait a second before stating the obvious. “You hired Zoya?”
Again, he lifts his chin. His reply is so nonchalant it seems as if it is only a big deal for me. “Does that bother you?”
“No,” I immediately answer. “I just…” With words eluding me, I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “It makes me wish we still had hours left in the air.” When I stray my eyes to the back of the plane, Maksim’s eyes follow their route. “The bedroom has a bed, right?”
“It does,” he answers as the front of his pants tighten. “And enough aviation fuel to get us halfway across the globe.” My skin flushes with heat when he smirks. “But I think my wife”—he growls my title again as if he’s aware of how wild it makes me—“would rather be ravished in an empty hangar than thirty thousand feet in the air.”
He doesn’t wait for me to confirm his assumption. He thanks the pilots for a smooth flight before he shows them the way out.
I’m naked and sprawled across the queen bed in his private jet not even thirty seconds later.
It is dark by the time we enter the apartment building where I reside with my grandparents. Although not quite dark enough to mistake the look of surprise on the doorman’s face when Maksim guides me through the main doors of the building instead of down the cracked walkway I usually take.
The shocked looks continue when we enter the elevator, and the attendant is told to take us to the penthouse suite.
I already feel like I’m dreaming, and Maksim makes my beliefs worse. “I had originally purchased the penthouse for us, but better ventilation could be installed on the top floor. Your grandfather will be more comfortable there.”
“Thank you.” My praise is not enough, but it is all I have to offer him right now. Once my grandmother is no longer eyeballing me, I will find a more sufficient way to thank him.
“Darling, you look so refreshed.” She tugs me out of the elevator that opens directly into the penthouse apartment before wrapping me up in one of her famously warm hugs. “I’ve missed you. You haven’t been away this long since…” She inches back, adjusts the collar of my shirt, and then brushes off her reply like she wasn’t about to say my last absence was when I sat in the morgue with my badly battered and mutilated mother’s body.