Chapter 35 Episode 35

She hasn’t been very far from me tonight. Apparently, the girl has it in her head that she’s going to be the next Mrs. Stepanov. Of course, Jasmine doesn’t deign to respond, so Jhené turns to me. She hooks her arm around mine possessively. “Which blonde is she talking about, Anton?” Jasmine stares at the two of us with amusement. The older she gets, the more readily her claws come out. It’s how she compensates for the boredom in her personal life. Apparently, the third husband is turning out to be quite the disappointment. Easy on the eyes, but no one is home upstairs. “You do seem to have a thing for blondes, don’t you, Anton?” Jasmine asks. “Which blonde?” Jhené asks again, growing frustrated. “I’d say you’re about to find out,” Jasmine says with a little chuckle. I turn just in time to see Jessa blazing a trail right for me. Her eyes are fixed on me unabashedly for the first time all night. I can practically see the steam coming out of her ears. She stops half a foot away from me, hands fisted and quivering like she’s barely resisting jabbing a furious finger into my chest. “We need to talk, asshole.” Jhené looks between us for a moment, waiting for the punchline. When it doesn’t come, her expression turns snotty. “Excuse you. I don’t think the waitstaff should be talking to—” “Zip it, Barbie. I’m not talking to you,” Jessa interrupts. Then she whips her head back to me. “I’m talking to this particular asshole.” I suppress my smile. “Come with me.” I lead her through the crowd, most of whom make no attempt to hide the fact that they’re watching with morbid curiosity. Jhené wasn’t wrong—any member of the waitstaff would normally be dismissed without question for pulling a stunt like this. I walk the little spitfire into one of the private alcoves that adjoin The Gilded Room. I snap the door shut and turn to her. Just as I suspected, she gives me the finger jab to the chest that she held back in the main room. “You are the biggest d**k on the f*****g planet.” “You called me in here to talk dirty to me?” I taunt. “If I’d known that’s what you wanted, I would’ve come much sooner.” “Don’t get cute with me. It suits your brother, but not you.” I noticed them talking earlier in the night. I have to bite my tongue from asking what exactly they were talking about. “I just got a call from my boss,” she says, her eyes flashing dangerously. “She let me know that I’ve been terminated, effective immediately.” I raise my eyebrows but don’t say anything. Obviously, that just pisses her off more. “You just got me fired, motherfucker! Aren’t you going to say anything?” I stroke my chin. “Well… I did warn you.” She stares at me in shock. “You… you’re not even going to deny it?” I scoff. “Why would I?” “But—what—why—what was the f*****g point?” she seethes. “The point?” I ask, taking a step towards her. “The point, Jessa, is that you refuse to listen. I wanted my phone back; you refused. I could use force and get what I want. But this method strikes me as so much more fun.” She processes that, her eyes blinking fast, her chest rising and falling with horror. “This job… it was my whole life.” “Shame you gambled with your life then, isn’t it?” I say. “But I didn’t exactly throw you into the ocean without a life vest, you realize.” “There is a job offer on the table,” I remind her. She narrows her eyes with disgust. “Working for you? No thanks, I’m not taking your f*****g pity job.” “You can’t honestly think this will work. It’s blackmail.” “And who are you going to report me to?” The defeat starts to sink in as she continues to stare at me. Her voice is a hollow croak. “Why are you doing this?” “It’s simple. If you had complied from the beginning and returned my phone, that would have been that. But you chose to provoke me. Now, not only will you have to return my phone, you’re going to have to pay off your interest.” “That’s right. I’ve wasted a lot of time chasing down that phone, Jessa. And my time does not come free. I demand compensation, and this is what I want.” “So you’re asking for slave labor. I don’t know why I’m surprised.” I laugh and saunter closer to her. She’s only a few inches away now. Close enough to smell her perfume, to sense her warmth. To see the fear and fury brewing in her eyes. “The longer you delay giving me back my phone, the longer you’ll have to work for me.” She shakes her head, breaking eye contact. “This… this isn’t fair.” “If you’re looking for ‘fair,’ you’re looking at the wrong man,” I tell her. “You should know that by now. So what do you say? Ready to return my phone now?” Her expression turns to stone. “f**k no.” I chuckle, which prompts Jessa’s eyes to narrow even further into angry little slits. “What the hell is so funny?” I shrug. “I guess I should take that as a compliment.” “You don’t want this game to end any more than I do. Why else would you hold on to that phone, knowing your freedom hangs in the balance?” “Because I will not let you manipulate me.” I give her my most disarming smile, before I grab her around the waist and pull her to me. “Is that right?” She plants both her hands on my chest and tries to shove me off her, but the effort is half-hearted. She’s concentrating on my lips, breathing fast and shallow. Telling me in every way but with her words that she’s addicted to the taste of me. “I admire the effort,” I tell her sarcastically. “Standing ovation.” “You think you affect me a lot more than you actually do, you know,” she says through gritted teeth. “I’m onto you, Anton.” “What exactly are you ‘onto,’ Jessa?” She stops struggling for a moment, her eyes bright with righteousness. “You’re bored with your life,” she snarls. “You want a distraction. And I’m the kind of easy prey you’ve always wanted.” I’m not expecting that, and for a moment, she actually succeeds in catching me off guard. But I recover quickly. “And how did you come to that conclusion?” “I was watching you tonight.” She ignores that bait. “You charm the room like you charmed me that first night. You control everyone around you. Every woman in there ogles you like you’re God’s gift to Earth. But I don’t. I don’t give a s**t who you are.” “Is that what you tell yourself?” I ask, gripping her waist a little tighter. “When you’re alone in your bed at night and you can’t fall asleep without wondering where I am, what I’m doing, if I’m thinking of you like you’re thinking of me?” “I don’t have to tell myself anything,” she hisses. “I can see it all on your face.” “Is that why you can’t stop staring?” Her eyes drop to my lips again. Color rises in her cheeks and her lips part. Instantly, my c**k is a steel rod in my pants. Jhené can doll herself up all she wants, but she’s got nothing on the woman in front of me. She is f*****g magnificent. “I’m not the only one staring,” she musters up with as much bravado as she can find. I smirk. Unlike Jessa, I’m not the least bit ashamed of my desires. “Because I’m imagining all the things I’m going to do to you,” I rasp to her. “All the things I haven’t already done…” Is it a threat? A promise? I leave that question open to interpretation. Her eyes go cloudy as she grapples for the answer. Desperate to know but too proud to ask. Her exhale is warm across my face. I find myself leaning towards her just as she shoves her doubts aside and tilts her chin up to meet me. Our lips slam together, all anger and passion and indignation. She claws at my chest at the same time I grab a fistful of her delicious ass. I’ve just pushed my tongue into her hungry mouth when the door opens and I hear a familiar gasp. Jessa jumps away from me instantly. Jhené gawks in at us with a pinched expression on her face. She looks like she’s swallowed something horrible. “What are you doing?” I demand. If possible, she seems even more insulted by my tone. “I… I wanted to find you.” “If I wanted to be found, I would have been out there with the rest of my guests.” Embarrassment flashes across her face. Then she jerks her chin out in a pout and says the only thing that could possibly get my attention. “I just… I thought you’d want to know that Don Ivanov arrived a few minutes ago.” I pretend as though the news is nothing but an inconvenience. A second later, I realize I don’t actually have to pretend. His timing couldn’t be worse. “I’ll be right out,” I say in a clipped voice. Jhené throws Jessa a deadly glare and slinks back out of the room. “Is he the man you’ve been waiting for all night?” Jessa asks. “Well, your party was so boring that listening to other people’s conversations is all I had. Who is he?”