Page 21 of Cruel Obsession

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit.” She leans down, bringing her face level with mine. “You couldn’t take your eyes off her tits when that dress split. You think I didn’t notice? You thinkno onenoticed?”

Heat floods my face—half anger, half guilt.

Because she’s right.

I’d looked. More than once. And when I’d forced myself to look away, my gaze had found its way back like iron to a magnet.

“You’re seeing things that aren’t there,” I say.

“Am I?” She trails one finger along the edge of my desk, circling closer. “Or are you just pissed because you can’t stop thinking about some little slut who probably couldn’t care less who you are?”

My hands curl into fists.

“Careful, Rosanna.”

“Why?” She laughs—high and brittle. “What are you going to do? Walk out on me again? You already did that in the most spectacular way possible.”

She’s closer now. Too close. Invading space I don’t want her in, breathing air I don’t want to share.

“I watched you watch her,” she continues, voice dropping to something quieter. More dangerous. “I saw the way your jaw got tight when she ran out. The way you tracked her when she came back. You wanted her.”

The accusation hangs in the air between us.

And I have no defense.

Because, again, she’s absolutely fucking right.

“Get out,” I say.

“No.”

I stand abruptly—fast enough that my chair rolls backward and hits the wall. Rosanna stumbles back a step, eyes widening.

Good. Let her remember what I’m capable of.

“Let me make this very clear,” I say, and my voice comes out low. Controlled. The kind of quiet that makes people’s survival instincts scream. “I do not want to get married. Not to you. Not to anyone. This whole arrangement was our fathers’ idea—not mine. I went along with it because it was strategic. Because it meant peace. But I never wanted it.”

Her face has gone pale now. Genuinely pale.

“And as for the baby?” I take a step toward her. She takes one back. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about that yet. But I will make that decision on my timeline—not because you manipulated me, not because your father demands it, and sure as fuck not because you think you can guilt me into playing house.”

“Arkady—”

“Now get the fuck out of my office.”

For a moment, she just stares—mouth slightly open, eyes glassy with tears that might actually be real this time.

Then she spins on her heel and storms out, slamming the door hard enough that the frame shudders.

The sound echoes.

Then silence crashes back in.

I stand there, breathing too hard, hands still clenched into fists.

My office feels smaller than it did five minutes ago. The walls seem closer. The air thicker.