Page 17 of The Hunted Wife

“Fine, but I don’t like it.”

“Adam, you married me because I could cook and you also needed someone to take care of this house and your brothers’ laundry. The fact that we have now been intimate so soon doesn’t change anything about our agreement.”

He ran a hand behind his neck. “I know how we started, but I don’t want you to feel like a servant.”

She closed her eyes, her heart softening. “I don’t feel like a servant. Did your mother feel like a servant? No. She was a woman caring for her family and that is what I want, what I am. A woman caring for her family. Let me be a part of this family, Adam. Don’t keep me on the outside.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “Millie.”

She looked up at him and gave him a small smile. “Adam.”

“What am I going to do with you?”

“Let me in. That’s all. Just let me in.”

He laid his cheek against the top of her head. “If it was only that easy.”

Ricard Sokolov slammed his fist on the table in the penthouse suite of The Steamboat Grand, making all the breakfast dishes rattle.

“Where is she? How can she evade me for so long? I want her found. Now, Viktor. Now!”

“Ricard. We are looking everywhere we can think of. We’ve checked every restaurant, large and small that we could find to see if she was there. The one place we found where she had worked doesn’t know where she went, she just disappeared and didn’t return, even for her paycheck. What else do you want me to do?”

Ricard ran a hand down his face and then looked at Viktor. “Find out where she went. Something must have happened to take her away. Find out where. Check every cheap apartment you can find and see where she was staying. The answer is here, you’re missing it.”

“Yes, Ricard. I’m on it.” Viktor hurried from the room.

Growling, Ricard sat in the overstuffed chair.

Soon, Nadia, his lover and Viktor’s baby sister, entered from the bedroom. She wore a short, skintight dress with a deep V neckline. She slid onto Ricard’s lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Why don’t you let, Nadia make you feel better? Why do you need Milena, anyway? She doesn’t want you and I do. I can make you feel the way you love to feel.”

He pushed her off his lap onto the floor. Then he took her face in his hand and squeezed lips together until she looked like a fish. “How many times have I told you to leave me alone? I’ll call you when I want a whore.”

Nadia picked herself off the floor and walked back into the bedroom.

“Good. He didn’t have time for sex, and it just wasn’t as much fun when they were willing. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t slake his lust whenever he wanted which was why he brought Nadia. But he wanted Milena. She would give him a challenge, one he hadn’t had in a long time. He was looking forward to breaking her.

Chapter 6

After having been married for nearly a month, Millie finally agreed to accompany Adam into town. He was determined to give them some sense of normalcy.

For her part, she was sure Ricard had to be gone. Why would he stay with no sightings of her in over a month?

She was actually happy to be getting out of the house and going to town.

In Steamboat Springs, they moved through shops, did the grocery shopping and strolled up and down sidewalks like any newly married couple. Adam saw a couple of people he knew and stopped to talk ranching.

They stopped in F M Light and Sons clothing store. Adam thought she needed some ranch style clothes to wear.

Millie sifted through a rack of women’s flannel shirts. Something caught her eye and she suddenly saw Viktor. She ducked behind the rack of shirts and watched until he left the area in front of the store.

Adam found her hiding. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and stared at Viktor. If he’s here, that means that Ricard hasn’t left the town as I hoped he would by this time.

Millie was scared to death. She literally shook in her boots.

She never took her eyes off of Viktor, though she stayed low and looked at him through the shirts and watched as Adam followed her line of sight and saw Viktor staring back.