Page 69 of Toxic Temptation
“Seriously, Kovan, I’m not in the mood. I had a shitty day and I’m in no state of mind to be?—”
A new voice from my bedroom cuts me off. “—can’t believe people actually live in places like this. There’s no room to swing a cat!”
A man I recognize as Kovan’s brother emerges from my bedroom. Pavel, I think. He’s almost as tall as Kovan but softer around the edges, with the kind of pretty boy face that probably got him whatever he wanted growing up.
He stops when he sees me. “Oh. You’re here.”
“This is my home,” I snap. “I’m supposed to be here.Youare not.” I turn my glare on Kovan. “What gives you—any of you—the right to be here?”
Kovan doesn’t look remotely bothered by my anger. He drifts toward my bookshelf, running his finger along the spines like he owns the place. “You refused to move in with me?—”
“Damn straight.”
“—so I’m moving in with you.”
My jaw drops. “You’re kidding me.”
“Serious as a heart attack.” He pauses, then chuckles. “Hope that’s not insensitive to say to a doctor.”
I stomp around my coffee table. “I tell you I want my own space andthisis your solution?”
His voice remains maddeningly calm. “I told you there’s a lot resting on our arrangement. We need to know each other, and the only way to do that is to live together. You gave me no choice.”
The thought of living with Kovan makes my already spinning head pound harder. If I’m going to survive this fake relationship with my sanity intact, I need distance. Space. Thick, sturdy walls between me and the way his presence seems to suck all the oxygen out of every room.
I step into his path. “I need you to?—”
“Vesper!”
The words‘fuck off forever’die on my tongue as Luka’s voice cuts through my anger. He appears from the hallway, his face lighting up when he sees it’s really me.
“You’re home! Your apartment is so cool. Where’s your television?”
My heart does something complicated in my chest at the sight of his gap-toothed smile. “I don’t own a television, hon.”
He rushes over and gives me a quick hug. “You don’t have a bed in your second room, either.”
“I don’t have many guests,” I explain. “When I do, I just use the sofa bed.”
He slaps his hands against his cheeks like the concept of a futon is life-altering. “This sofa turns into a bed?! That’s so cool! Can I sleep here tonight?”
“Don’t worry, kiddo,” Kovan says. “I can have the boys move in a real bed.”
“It’ll have to be small,” another voice warns from my bedroom doorway.
I turn to see Osip emerging, and I throw my hands up. “You’re here, too? Jesus, how many of you are there?”
“Just the four of us,” Kovan says, like I’m the one being unreasonable. “I needed help moving our things.”
If Luka wasn’t standing there with that huge smile, I would have thrown something at Kovan’s head. Preferably something heavy and sharp. The manipulative bastard knows exactly what he’s doing, backing me into a corner I can’t escape without hurting an eight-year-old’s feelings.
Pavel wanders into my kitchen and opens my refrigerator without asking. “You guys are going to need more than a bed. There’s nothing in here.” He turns to me. “Don’t you eat?”
“I don’t have time to eat,” I snap. “Close that door.”
He does, then promptly moves on to my cabinets. “It gets grimmer and grimmer. Enough coffee in here to fuel an army, but no actual food. Not even a dang PopTart.”
I march into the kitchen and slam the cabinet shut. Pavel jerks his fingers back like he’s afraid I’ll crush them.
