Page 6 of His Prince

This has to be a mistake.

Maybe I’m just imagining this.

That has to be it.

As I sit up, a dull ache pulses up my inner thighs and my assclenches. I wince as the bedroom door whips opens and an older woman walks through.

This must be Nina.

I can tell just by looking at her that she’s fierce, her face drawn and unfeeling. She approaches me and clucks at me, like a mother hen.

“You look wrecked. They always do,” she mutters and then points. “Bathroom. Now,” she adds.

“Wait. What do you mean by that?” I ask softly, trying to play nice. I need to make friends here, not enemies.

“I meant what I said. Now go.”

I do as she says, wanting to appease her. I stand with a wince, hobbling over to the tub, my hands in front of my crotch as I go. But she doesn’t look at me, just turns the tub on, adding soaps and salts to the water before pointing to it.

“In.”

I gingerly step in, the water barely at my stomach as I sink into the ceramic tub, my ass tightening in pain from the hard seat beneath it. Nina doesn’t seem to care at all. She just hands me a washrag and then huffs before turning away and disappearing into the bedroom. Through the rush of the warm water falling from the faucet, I can hear the bedsheets being stripped from the mattress and suddenly shame washes over me.

Nina is doing what Mikhail should be doing. My husband should be taking care of me. Not some woman who looks like she could be my grandmother.

My mind turns, trying to piece together all of it, to make sense of it, but nothing fits. None of this makes sense.

I blink back a wave of tears just as Nina comes into the bathroom.

“Do not cry,” she says when she hears me sniffle. “This is what you signed up for.”

“I’m thinking I don’t know what I signed up for,” I reply and then rub the washcloth against my skin. I’m obviously not doing a goodenough job because she snatches it from me and gets to work, scrubbing it across my skin in an almost bruising manner.

“You married him. You should have known how the Ivanovs are. How the Russians are.”

“Yeah.”

Her hand stops for a moment and she leans back, those eyes of hers softening slightly. “Listen, boy. Mikhail has many guests. It’s best you lower any expectations you have. You may be his husband in name and on paper, but that’s all you are, do you hear? You’re just a transaction, a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. No more, no less.”

“Guests?” I ask, my chest tightening almost painfully as my mind sticks to that one word. “What do you mean by that?”

When she doesn’t answer, only soaps up my hair, I whisper, “Like guests he fucks?”

“Mhm.”

“But…we’re married. He’s married now.”

“You are the son of a mafia don. How do you not know how things are done?”

It’s such a simple question and yet I feel so stupid for not realizing sooner.

“I do know how they’re done, just not howhedoes them.”

“It doesn’t matter now. You’re here. This is your life. You will get used to it. In time.”

I don’t believe her, my mind still reeling from it all. I can’t believe this is real. This can’t be real.

The Mikhail she is describing is not the man I spent hours on the phone with, the one who wooed me so deliciously as he spoke. I was sure he wanted me, that this marriage was the right decision. Despite how this all began as an arrangement, just a way for my father to ensure my safety from his enemies. I saw Mikhail’s desire for me. Nina must be mistaken. This has to be a mistake.

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