Cassie shook her head. “No, that’s not even it. Rage cleaned shop after that bad shit went down. A lot of people didn’t like how Dad treated you, nor what he was doing to the club. Going against Ivan Volkov was a bad move. This is different. Ivan put Rage in place, but even though he was the VP, they needed to know he had what it took.”
“They all know he has what it takes.”
“We all know that, but now they’re making him work for it, and it’s kind of hard to watch.”
“He’s won, though, right?”
“Hey, we’ve got to stop talking about the bad stuff,” Cassie said, reaching for my hand. “And tell me about the good stuff. You’re a married woman now, and I have to say, Ive is hot.”
This made me blush, I couldn’t help it.
Cassie giggled. “Come on, you have to tell me all about it. You have to tell me what he’s like in bed, or what it’s like being married to one of the most powerful men in the world.”
This made me laugh. “Ive Yahontov is not the most powerful man in the world.”
“But he is in your world, in our world. Comeon, spill the details.”
There’s not a lot to spill. I wanted to laugh and giggle, and do the whole girly routine, but there was nothing for me to say, so I shrugged.
“It’s great,” I said.
“Charlotte?”
“You never liked the city life,” Cassie said.
“Don’t say that.”
“They were going to kidnap you,” I said. “You do know that. They wanted to have someone to use leverage against our dad. Instead, someone fucked up and they got me. You should be the one here, married. You would fit in.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Cassie said. “You haven’t seen the way Ive looks at you.”
“He doesn’t look at me.”
“No? I saw the way he looked at you through dinner. He wants to see you happy.”
“You haven’t had sex?”
“He doesn’t find me attractive.”
“I doubt that,” Cassie said.
“He sees me as a child.”
Cassie scrunched up her nose. “Is that a bad thing? I mean, seriously?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, because in truth, that wasn’t a bad thing. “I’m not a child, but I also don’t want to stay in a bad marriage.”
“Is he mean to you?”
“No.”
Cassie pressed her fingers to her head as she was trying to rub out the memory of her asking. This did make me smile.
“What’s it like?”I asked.
“Sex?”
“Yes.” I know Cassie has done it. There were a couple of guys at school, who after having sex with Cassie, announced it to the whole school. She’d been mortified. The club had been sure to punish the guys. One of them had been a jock, and Dad or one of the guys had broken his pitching arm, when he needed it most. The other guy had been a geek, and well, he’d been at the hospital while some kind of important life-changing decision was being made by some tech scouts or something. I don’t know. Either way, they had both paid the price for humiliating my sister.
“It, er, it can be good. The first time isn’t great. It’s kind of awkward, but I don’t know how it would be for you. My first time was with a loser, Charlotte. He didn’t have the first clue of what he was doing, and it wasn’t great.” She wrinkled her nose. “Ive doesn’t look like a loser who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Therewas that.
The door to Ive’s office opened and Rage walked out. He didn’t look happy, and neither did Ive. Ivan seemed to be in quite a pleasant mood still. I wondered if he had put my husband and Rage in a bad mood.
Rage, Cassie, and Ivan left minutes later. It was just Ive and me.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.