Page 51 of Vengeful Vows

“A doctor? Don’t be absurd. I rolled m-my ankle. It isn’t an emergency s-situation.”

“Dr. Morgasten is a resident of the Chrysler building. He’ll come straight down. Then you can get back to…” A growl ends my reply when I peer up at the chandelier. It is even more hazardous from this viewpoint. “Home. You can go home as you should have hours ago.”

I loosen the tightness of my jaw with a quick grind when the receptionist answers my call. “Good evening, Mr. Orlov. How can I help you?”

“Dr. Morgasten’s residence, please,” I request through clenched teeth, frustrated by her inability to refer to me by my given name as asked numerous times over the past three weeks.

Apparently, my mother’s orders outrank mine.

“Right away, sir,” she replies, not missing the sternness of my bark.

A clank sounds before it is swallowed by a noise I never want to hear again. “He-he? Dr. M-Morgasten is a m-man?”

Mara’s eyes widen when they meet mine. Although they still stimulate a jolt of excitement to my cock, that isn’t the only response they entice.

They announce that she is scared.

My focus momentarily rips away from Mara’s whitening cheeks when a gravelly voice sounds down the line. “Arkadiy, what a pleasure it is?—”

I hang up before Dr. Morgasten can issue all of his greeting, before twisting to face Mara front on.

I don’t need to ask the profession of the man who hurt her.

Her frightened expression tells me everything I need to know.

Medical professionals are meant to save lives.

Her unvoiced confession just cut one of theirs short.

I try to keep my tone neutral. It is a woeful waste of time. It couldn’t be more possessive if I tried. “If you don’t want to see someone about your foot, you need to ice it.”

Mara’s chest sinks when she sighs in relief. “I will. The instant I get h-home?—”

“No. Now. You will ice it now.”

“Now?”

She looks as bewildered as I feel when I stride across the den, pluck her from the armchair, lift her into my arms, and then veer my steps to my bedroom.

22

MARA

Iswallow to soothe the dryness of my throat when Ark’s long steps veer us past Veronika’s room. There wasn’t an ounce of deceit in his tone when he said she had left this morning. However, I’m still shocked to see her room is empty. All the designer dresses she picked last week are gone, and the vanity mirror the cleaning staff wipes down every morning doesn’t have a speck of the compact powder that gives her skin a luminous shine.

Even the hundreds of boxes of shoes once stacked on the far left of her room have been removed.

For someone who packed in such a hurry that she forgot her favorite makeup, she must have had an army at her beck and call to gather the rest of her belongings. They cleared out the equivalent of a boutique store in under two hours.

That’s an impressive record.

My heart flips when Ark’s long strides continue until we enter his bedroom. Since it is the furthest from the den and always meticulously cleaned before I arrive for my shift, this is the first time I’ve been here in over two weeks.

It smells different from what it did back then, more feminine than mannish. The girlie palette would flip my stomach with unease if some of it didn’t register as familiar.

Ark is still using my shampoo.

The air that wafts up when he places me on the mattress and stuffs a pillow under my ankle announces this without a doubt, not to mention my quickest peek into his bathroom when he pushes the door wide open to wordlessly assure me there are more exits than people capable of blocking them.

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