Alexandr's Reluctant Submissive Read Free Page A

shifts in temper. “I could have protected you all those years ago if you’d simply come to me instead of running away. All you had to do was trust me to take care of you like I had sworn to do.”
    She jerked back, his words hitting her like a fist. The side of her leg bumped a chair as she regained her balance. When she stumbled, he took a step forward as if to steady her but she held her hand out and snarled, “Trust you? Seriously? You lied to me about everything, over and over again. And I betrayed you by saving our daughter’s life? You have lost your mind.”
    He ran his hands through his still thick hair and began to pace. “You should have told me. I would never have allowed him to hurt you. Never.”
    “How could I? Alex, people were coming to kill me, they fucking shot Krom in the head and killed our guards. Even if your father hadn’t contacted me, those men would still have come for me. I would still be dead.”
    “I could have protected you!” His voice turned anguished and her heart bled for his pain. “If you had just trusted me a little more, I would have destroyed anyone for you. Do you not understand? I would rather have died with you than lived without. No torture in the depths of Hell could compare to the pain of living without you at my side. You were dead to me, Jessica, and my heart died with you.”
    His words struck her right in the chest and she gasped at the pain in his hot silver eyes, in every line of his strong, scarred body. All the horror and agony he’d endured was displayed before her and she whimpered for him, torn apart by how much he hurt. Her body ached with guilt, and anger, and fear, all mixed up into a dizzying cocktail that left her thoughts scrambled. Right now her emotional side ruled and her stupid soft heart couldn’t stand to see him suffering.
    “I did have faith in you, and faith in Krom. He said he would come get me when it was safe, and I believed that he was working on a way to make it safe. Every day I prayed he would be there, I’d look for him in crowds and hope. I had to stop doing that because as the days passed and I never saw him, it…it hurt. Bad. I-I had difficulty dealing with knowing how much our deaths hurt you, all too aware that if I really tried I could probably find a way to contact you. But at what price? When your father had me kidnapped—”
    “What?” Alex said in a low, deadly murmur.
    A hitch in her breath stole her voice for a moment, but she forced herself to continue. “He had me kidnapped just to show me that he could, and to reinforce the consequences of what would happen if I returned to you. That…that bastard made me watch a tape of Oleg’s daughter’s funeral.”
    An anguished sound escaped him and he ran his hands into his hair again, this time gripping it with his fists.
    “Fuck!” His snarl startled her and she flinched, and he grit his teeth. Closing his eyes, he breathed hard enough that his nostrils flared with each deep inhalation.
    Knowing he was on the edge of losing it entirely, she quickly said, “They didn’t hurt me, at all, just scared me.”
    Hands trembling, he visibly struggled to control himself. “I failed you.”
    She ducked her head and tried to keep her cool so she didn’t burst into hysterical tears of sorrow and guilt. Misplaced or not, she couldn’t help but hate knowing that she was responsible for so much grief, so much agony. But even as guilty as she felt, the alternative would have been to have Jorg steal Tatiana from her in the middle of the night like some gruesome troll from an old fairy tale.
    “No, no you didn’t, not at all.” Desperately, she tried to make him understand why she went along with his father’s scheming. “If I had stayed, thousands of people would have died, Alex.”
    Before he closed his eyes, she watched him struggle to hold back tears. The sight of her proud man so exposed, so raw, was for no one but her. He was giving her a gift by showing his open