Page 21 of Bought to Bear Bratva Heir

"You disgust me, Daisy," he seethed as he hosed me down. Instantly, my white underwear was soaked and turned transparent. My nipples grew diamond-hard under the freezing cold spray.

"You are covered in piss and throw-up. You stink," he continued. "And you stand there and think I want you." Leaning into the shower, he drew our faces close together. He didn’t seem to care that he was soaking himself as well. "I do not want you. I can barely stand to look at you. Now," his voice dropped to a whisper that froze me more thoroughly than the water did. "Take off your underwear before I take a knife and cut it from you. I’m angry, Daisy. My hands are shaking. I wouldn’t trust me with a knife."

I stared at him, open-mouthed.

"Strip," he ordered, rearing back out of the cold spray.

I shimmied my full panties down my legs and stepped out of them. My hands shook so much it took me three attempts to unclasp my bra. Finally, I straightened, my arms trying to cover as much of my nudity as I could. I didn’t know why I bothered. Ilya had seen me naked so many times. But that had been the old me. I wasn’t that woman anymore. My body had changed.

Reaching out, he pulled my hands to the side, baring me to him. And there was absolutely nothing in his face. Nothing at all. Not one speck of emotion.

I swallowed hard.

Finally, he let go of my hands with a sigh and stepped back. "Clean yourself up, Daisy. You will stay here. Locked in this room." His eyes swept up and down me before he bent to pick up my discarded clothes. "Until I decide what to do with you."

Chapter Eight

Ilya

Locking her bedroom door behind me, I went straight to the trash chute and threw her clothes down into the abyss. Next, I went to pour myself a drink. Downing the burning liquid in one, I snatched up the bottle, and that’s when my hands started shaking.

My legs were going by the time I reached my bedroom and flung myself down on the bed, bottle still in my hand.

It was only then that I allowed the shock to take over.

Daisy was alive.

Alive and well and right here.

She had died; I had buried her casket. Her body burned beyond recognition when the car she had escaped in crashed and caught fire.

She had died.

And I had cried for her.

So how could she be here now? Looking beautiful, looking like the woman I had wanted to spend the rest of my life with?

The bottle fell from my fingers to spill across the black carpet, but I didn’t move to pick it up. All I could do was lie there and stare sightlessly ahead.

DAISY WAS ALIVE.

And she was as beautiful as she had always been. Her body a little softer, her breasts a tad bigger. The stretch marks and scar across her once flat stomach hadn’t taken away from that beauty. If anything, they had enhanced it.

I wanted her. I had wanted her from the second I had seen her in the graveyard, but that feeling had been drowned out with the shock and anger. A few seconds ago, when she had been standing naked and wet in front of me with her eyes imploring mine to be kind and gentle—all of that want had come back with a vengeance.

She had looked at me like that before. Pleaded with me to treat her nicely. And I had done it because, right from the beginning, I craved her smiles more than I craved her tears.

Six years had passed since she had ripped my heart out, and she still had the ability to bring me to my knees like no one else had been able to do.

Well, no one but Alexander.

I couldn’t let her; I wouldn’t let her get the better of me again.

I wouldn’t let her pleading, pretty eyes and soft smiles make me love her again.

Only—

I didn’t even remember pulling my phone out of my pocket or turning it on to the cameras in her room, but there she was.