Bad Apple (Part 1) (5 page)

Irina

It was the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me. It felt so good.

For a split second I can’t find my wits to remind myself why I firmly resolved last night not to have anything to do with him.

The problem is that he’s overwhelming and way too….too everything right now.

And he wants more, so much more of that mind-blowing pleasure. How’s a girl to say no when just a finger can do that to her? I want more, too. I just can’t deal with the thought of family dinners and strollers right now.

I can’t say why I’m fighting against commitment with Misha when every other relationship I’ve been in always had me thinking of the future. All I can say is that when I look at him, it scares the hell out of me.

He’s too much for this small city girl to hold and I know it. And I know, too, that if he keeps this up I’ll fall recklessly in love with a man who will break my heart.

“Angel?”

I shake myself and look back up at him, my heart in my throat as I see those clear blues smiling down at me.

“You’re going to hurt me,” I whisper finally, meeting his eyes.

“No. Angel—”

“You will. You won’t be able to help it, Misha, just as I won’t be able to help falling for you. We’re not the same and you know it. You’re a fast and loose kind of guy with a lifestyle to suit, and I’m just a twenty-five-year-old baker with two cats and a family that makes my life impossible. We don’t suit.”

“Angel, I would never hurt you in any way.”

“You wouldn’t want to, but it’s inevitable if we start anything sexual. I’m not equipped to be with a guy like you, Misha. Friends is all I can do,” I say regretfully, watching his jaw bunch before he takes a deep breath and meets my eyes.

“I’ll take what I can get.”

***

The next two days are freaking magical in a weird way. Misha is a tyrant and completely insane when it comes to his care of me.

I’ve had to watch him move around his penthouse all freaking morning in nothing but his sweats and some very delicious tattoos.

So now here I am with my new hot friend, and I’m being really naughty by sneaking out of his pricey penthouse to the curb where Nik’s waiting for me in Delilah.

“Jesus, chickie! You sure you should be walking around on that ham?” she demands, giving my wrapped ankle a glance.

“It’s fine. He wouldn’t let me remove it no matter how many times I told him it’s fine. Let’s go!” I huff, ignoring the twinge in my shoulder as Delilah sputters off after a long and painful jerk of displeasure.

I’m looking back and checking to make sure no one’s watching, like a freaking criminal. But he’s relentless. He’s effectively turned me into a lazy slob the last two days, and now that it’s Monday and he’s off to the office I have my escape. Finally.

“Dude, that man is so gonna kick your rear end when he finds out you’ve escaped the asylum. He’s already planned a week-long break for you and reworked the opening and closing schedule so that you’re free to lie on your ass till next Sunday. You’re so fucked when he finds you. I can’t wait to hear what he can do with all that pent-up aggression,” she breathes, shivering mockingly as she eyes me up and down.

Controlling bastard. Cute, but still infuriating.

“Get me to work before I kick your butt, potty mouth. Me and Misha are friends and that’s all there is to it.”

Friends. Just friends.

Why you having those naughty dreams then, Ri?

We get to the shop twenty minutes later and I hobble out and into the sweet-smelling heaven to the sounds of clapping and my friends groaning in relief.

“Welcome back.”

“Thank God. I made a batch of blinis yesterday that weren’t like yours, and this hyena,” Tatiana growls, pointing at a guy we call Urkel with a balding head and coke-bottle glasses, “he started complaining! Complaining as if we don’t have the right to let our injured friend take two lousy days off to recover from an injury!” she yells. Loudly.

I cringe and scan the crowd of rapt customers, throwing Urkel an apologetic smile before slinking to the back to get started on rescuing my regulars from Tat’s horrifying baking skills.

The creaming has my eyes tearing, but I persevere through the pain and finally get a batch of cupcakes into the oven before looking up and freezing.

Uh-oh.

“You’re working.”

Oh damn.

“Hi?” I choke, the icing bag in my hands shaking when he pushes off the doorframe and stalks forward.

“We had a deal, angel.”

“No, we did not.” I laugh huskily, shaking my head at his gall. “You told me rather imperiously to stay in bed all day and that Greta, your housekeeper, would see to me. There was no deal.”

The man is frustrating as hell. He orders, makes demands, and generally throws his weight around at any given moment, telling me what I can and can’t do.

Just last night I almost died of embarrassment when he sidled into the bathroom in nothing but boxers, gloriously tight white boxers, and started washing my hair because he didn’t want me to wrench my shoulder or swan around with a “greasy mop.”

I stopped yelling only when it registered that he didn’t have a hard-on and spent the next ten tortuous minutes sulking silently as he lathered, rinsed, and conditioned me.

Talk about demoralizing. Apparently my fat ass lying down is all kinds of hot, but when I’m upright and gravity joins the party, it’s a no-brainer.

Stupid pride.

Which I now admit is one of the main reasons I pulled a runner this morning. I can’t take another night of him cuddled up on the sofa with me, watching TV without a care while my vagina tries to abandon ship and slide right onto him.

I had to leave but now the object of my affections, as unwilling as they are, is now standing over me scowling at my exposed left arm and my bare foot.

“We are friends?” He leans into my back and breathes into my ear, sending shivers of pure want through me.

“Y-yes.”

His chest scrapes over my back as he reaches his arms around me and takes the piping bag out of my hands.

“Then as your friend, I want you to know that this is stupid. You’re still injured and in pain, and the bloody doctor specifically warned you not to use your left arm for anything strenuous.”

He lifts me and gently sets me on the table.

“No butts on the work space.”

His hands come down on either side of me and he leans down so we’re eye level, his face a mask of disapproval.

“You have no care for yourself, angel.”

“I do, I just need to be here, Misha. Please understand. I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me, and I will forever be grateful that the three hyenas out front didn’t find me in that position, but I have to be here. This is my place, my baby, and I can’t let it go downhill because I hurt myself going…well I just can’t,” I plead, willing him to understand.

He looks deep into my eyes for a long time, just taking me in before his shoulders drop and his head hangs down.

“You will let me bring in someone to help you for the rest of the week. You can coordinate and supervise, but the sling goes back on and you plant your sweet ass on this stool, all day when I am not here to take you to lunch or take you home.”

“But—”

“And you will take the pain killers the doctor gave you.”

“But—”

“Or I will not only call Mama, but I will phone your parents as well and let you explain to them why you’re neglecting your health,” he finishes, leaving me gaping and downright fuming by the time he raises his head and glares at me.

“You—”

“Eh,” he warns, his finger landing on my lips as he stands to his full height, gazing down at me. “You agree to my terms or I will call them all so fast, your head will spin. As your friend, it is my privilege to ensure that you are okay, and I will do that any way I have to. Now agree or prepare for the blitz.”

Irina

I took the deal like a champ and spent three days watching a chef, or whatever, totally take over my space and tell me what I should be doing to make my products a winner, as if I need it!

I took that hit and took it with at least some grace, only to turn around on Friday morning and see Luka leaning against the kitchen door at half past five in the morning, scowling at me.

“You look like shit.”

I roll my eyes at the great hulking asshole as he saunters in and hops onto my worktable, snatching up a freshly iced red velvet mini cake.

“Thanks. What are you doing here?” I ask, ignoring his penetrating look and going on with my job, which is the only thing keeping me together right now.

I love my family, but they’re smothering me to death most of the time, and having the peacekeeper known as Luka just waltz in unannounced is a sure sign that I’m about to get some bad news.

“Mama got a call from the orphanage this morning.”

Oh shit.

I’ve been digging a little, doing some research about finding my birth mother, but I’ve kept it quiet because I know my family. It would hurt my parents dreadfully if they thought the life they’d given me and their love wasn’t enough.

This whole thing was always just about knowing, not really having contact with someone who’d given me up so easily.

But my
mamen’ka
is a firecracker, and dramatic to boot. She cries when the roses die, for goodness’ sake! This would hurt her. A lot.

I look up at Luka with tear-filled eyes and finally see the depth of his anger and feel my knees buckle when not one ounce of the love I’m familiar with trickles forth.

“I was just curious, Luka. I never wanted anyone to know,” I plead, fighting against tears when he slowly gets off the table and looks down at me balefully.

“You’re selfish, Irina. Selfish and spoiled. I hope you’re happy with what you’ve done,” he hisses before turning on his heel to stalk out.

‘No! Luka, please,” I beg, grabbing at his arm.

“Don’t!” he grates, flinging me off in distaste, his face a mask of fury even as the force of his push sends me crashing back into the corner of the table with a gasp.

My knees buckle beneath me and I fall to my knees, the breath completely knocked out of me as the door slams open and shut rhythmically.

My back hurts where I hit the metal corner of the table, and my ankle isn’t that happy with me, either, as I take in huge breaths of air and fight the need to cry.

It hurts so much, everything all at once, that I don’t notice the first intruder, or the second or third until they’re right on top of me.

And then my shitty morning turns to hell as I scream my head off and crumple to the floor in defeat.

***

I stand with the fumigators going over costs and estimates as Nik and the rest of the girls turn customers away from the door, the arguing and downright unpleasantness taking over and causing the throbbing in my head to go postal on me.

It’s been four hours since I found those first rats in my bakery. If anyone finds out about this, I’ll be ruined and I’ll have no hope of ever getting back in business.

My skin crawls again and I drop my head into my hands at the monumental mess my life has become. My family hates me, not one of them will answer my calls, and my business is closed for the next week, at least, as they tear the kitchen apart trying to clean it all up.

“Fuck my life!” I yell at the top of my lungs, causing both exterminators to jump back and watch me wearily as the tears start flowing.

I want to crawl home and eat a gallon of ice cream even as the lure of booze starts calling my name.

“Ma’am?” one of them asks hesitantly, laying a hand on my quaking shoulders to pat me softly. “It’s not all that bad.”

Not bad? This guy just told me my entire shop is infested with a species of rat notoriously difficult to get rid of, and I have one of their vans parked in front of my window, loudly declaring their purpose for all to see, and he wants to tell me it’s not that bad?

I’ve slaved myself to the bone for this business, sweated and cried many nights to get myself to a place where I can finally buy a freaking gallon of ice cream and a bottle of wine without worrying about my rent, and now this…

To top it all off, the last time I drove by my parents’ house and my dad saw me, he just turned and walked away.

Everything in my life is falling apart, but instead of getting back up and fighting like I usually do, I feel myself slipping into a void.

“Irina! What’s wrong, angel?” I hear from somewhere far off as the mumbling around me fades and the bell above the door tinkles again.

“Angel?”

“My life is ruined.”

“Angel…”

“No,” I say, lifting my head with a scowl. “Don’t ruin my pity party for at least another two minutes, okay? I need a good cry and then I’m going home to get dressed so I can go dancing. Now go away with your weird friendship and leave me be. I’ll call you tomorrow when I don’t feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown.”

He laughs and pries my head up again, his blue eyes concerned as he stares at me.

“What’s happened?”

“Well, to start off the best of best days,” I say sarcastically, “Luka rocked up here and yelled at me, my family hates me, and now I have a huge rat infestation that’s closing my business down. In a nutshell, my life is screwed, and I have to pay the exterminators six grand I’ll have to earn on my freaking back or by selling an organ.”

He laughs again and I raise my head to glare at him.

“Oh come now, my little actress, surely things aren’t so dire?”

“Not dire? I woke up this morning thinking maybe I’d change things up and eat cream cheese on my bagel, and now…everything has changed.”

I hear a throat being cleared and look up to see Vadim standing to my left, laughing silently.

Misha pulls me to my feet and checks me over.

“You will come home with us and have dinner while Vadim sorts this mess out,” he says confidently, silencing his brother’s protests with a growl.

“Fine! But I get Nikita in the mix or no deal.”

I hope he knows what she’s like when she’s annoyed.

“Deal.”