Page 77 of The Brutal Arrangement

Sloane groaned. “Well, clearly, she hasn’t succumbed to any violent urges since she’s been here, right?”

“Talk,” Maxim said. “So I can know if you can be trusted to be the recipient of my fiancée’s girl talk.”

“Talk about what, though?” I asked. Maxim was demanding, but he wasn’t quite as morbidly powerful as Damon was.

“When did you start working there?” Sloane asked, giving this conversation a smoother beginning.

Over lunch, I told them everything. The boring, plain details of how I’d worked there. I left nothing out, mentioning the vague things I’d observed at the Kozlov house. I didn’t leave out how I’d overheard that Damon was “Demon”. When it came to Katerina, I was candid and admitted that I thought she’d be like a friend. Only once I came to my time here, how I hadn’t heard from anyone from the Kozlov household, did I feel like a weight was off my shoulders.

“But she never saidwhatshe was looking for?” Sloane asked.

I shook my head. “She was often on her laptop,” I said, doubling back to how Katerina reasoned that she couldn’t fulfill this arrangement to marry. “She told me that she couldn’t come here and handle this marriage arrangement herself because she thought her uncle was hiding something.”

“Something?” Maxim asked. “Orsomeone?”

I shrugged. “I’m pretty sure she saidsomething. She mentioned secrets and something about motivations. All I got was that she wanted to stay at that house or another house to investigate something. It seemed important enough to her that she’d ask her maid to stand in her place.”

They both followed up with more questions, and my story stayed the same. I got the impression they wanted to confirm that I didn’t seem like a supporter or fan of Anton Kozlov himself. And that Katerina didn’t seem to be on the same team as her uncle, either.

Afterward, I relished this freedom of being off the hook.

“I don’t see whyIhad to have this conversation with you,” Maxim muttered with a wry expression.

“Because, like you said, Damon has his head up his ass,” Sloane quipped. “So, does she pass your security check?”

Maxim shrugged. “If I thought she was ever a real risk, I never would’ve let her stay here at all.”

Gee, thanks.

“Okay, see, that’s why she seems so skittish.” She pointed at him. “That’s why she’s so defensive and not talkative or anything. You all act like shehasto be some kind of spy.”

“I’m not,” I stated, just in case telling them one more time would help.

“Lucy, if there’s anything you ever need,” Maxim said as he stood and gestured for Sloane to get up as well, “please let me know.”

“Um. Well, I was thinking that if I just need to be here somewhere, could I have a guest room on another floor so Damon doesn’t have to be deprived of his home?”

Maxim sighed and shook his head. “No.”

“But—”

“No,” Maxim said. “I know things aren’t starting off well between you two, but if there is any chance you could care about him?—”

“He’s the one who doesn’t care about me,” I interjected. I stood, determined to at least have my own space and not be reminded of how little Damon wanted to ever see me. “If he wants to knock me up and dismiss me, then obviously, I can’t have any say in that. But I don’t need to be in his space unnecessarily.”

Sloane frowned, giving Maxim a pleading look.

“If there is any chance you could care about him,” Maxim resumed saying slowly, “then be patient. He’s not used to the novel concept of a woman actually wanting anything to do with him.”

I highly doubted that. The man didn’t learn to be such a sex god and master of making me come by fluke incidents. Damon had to have had a very varied sex life before me, an experience that might have meant many flings or whores, but he was definitely no celibate saint to bethatgood with his dick. And mouth. And his hands and?—

Stop.

I sighed.

They left, claiming that Sloane was due for a nap, which she didn’t seem to want. I bet Maxim was probably using his insistence for “bed rest” as an excuse to have her alone. With how she giggled and smiled up at him, it didn’t look like she minded his attention like that.

Instead of feeling that jealousy again, I lounged and wondered if patience was all that I needed with Damon.

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