Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
So why the hell couldn’t I get her under control?
I wasn’t the kind of man who lost his head over a pretty blonde with a sharp tongue and fuckable curves. But I’d never met a woman so fierce. So unapologetically alive.
And those damn flashing green eyes.
I tried to shake the image from my head. Focus on something else. Anything else.
I was supposed to be making dinner. Instead, my mind wandered to her.
That moment when her innocence brushed against the head of my cock—I nearly lost it.
I was close. So fucking close to taking what wasn’t mine to take.
No matter how much I wanted it.
Somehow, that little fucking printsessa had stolen more control than she ever should have had.
Any other woman would’ve shattered under what I gave her.
The spanking I delivered wasn’t playful—it wasn’t even meant to arouse.
It was punishment. Raw. Ruthless. My palm still ached from the force.
But she took it. Every single strike. And judging by how wet she was, she loved it.
Not just tolerated it—got off on it.
She wasn’t some porcelain doll. She was a goddamn masochist.
Maybe it wasn’t the pain.
Maybe it was me.
Wishful thinking.
With the men she’d been around in her orbit—her brothers, her father, that pathetic excuse of a husband—I wondered if there was something to it. None of them knew what she really was. None of them appreciated her strength, let alone knew how to tame it.
A woman like Zoya needed a man who could see what she was made of, then break her down and rebuild her stronger.
Not one of them was capable of that.
I forced myself to think about something else, anything else, to clear my head.
I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I had no idea when the last time she ate was.
So, I started making ropa vieja.
My mother’s recipe.
She made it every time I got sick or upset. Called it the ultimate comfort food—beef, tomatoes, spices that warmed the body and soothed the soul.
I didn’t understand that as a child. Now I did.
I cooked it when I missed her. When I missed the life I had before she died.
I wasn’t always the black sheep of the Ivanov clan.
For the first ten years of my life, I was loved.
My mother was Cuban. My father, Russian—an Ivanov. The younger brother of Artem’s and Gregor’s fathers.
They taught me things my cousins were only just now learning the hard way.
They taught me love wasn’t a promise. It was a plague.
True love didn’t conquer all—it destroyed everything in its path. Left nothing behind.
My parents fought it at first. She was a diplomat’s daughter. He was a bratva prince.
They met at university. Clashed in the middle of class—neither one remembered what the fight was about. Only that each was convinced they were right, and the other was wrong.
My mother used to tell me the story while running her fingers through my hair as I fell asleep.
She’d say I was the product of two fierce nations. When opposites collided with enough intensity, they broke down to the bone—and what was left was something new. Something stronger.
I was supposed to be that something.
I had her wit. His strategic mind. Her warm skin and eyes. His height. His strength.
The stubbornness? They both claimed I got that from the other.
They planned everything for me—elite schools, top universities. I was their hope. The bridge between empires.
When her father found out she’d fallen for a Russian criminal, she was cut off.
My father’s mother disowned him when he refused to return to Moscow and serve the family.
They didn’t care.
They chose each other.
And for the first ten years of my life, I believed I’d find that kind of love, too.
Then she died.
A car crash. Maybe an accident. Maybe a hit. I never got the chance to find out.
My father packed up our small London apartment and took me to live with his mother in Rublyovka.
That week changed everything.
I learned the tiny place we had in London was a step down for my father. He’d walked away from wealth and power for my mother.
But what that apartment lacked in square footage, it made up for in warmth.
My grandmother was a bitter, ice-hearted woman.
She barely looked at me. Called me a mongrel. A mutt.
I thought maybe she didn’t realize I spoke Russian fluently.
I found out quickly she just didn’t give a damn.
My father stayed for a week. Then he left. Back to London. I never saw him again.
A month later, my grandmother sneered and told me he was dead. Suicide. Claimed it was because he didn’t love me.
But I knew the truth.
He didn’t die because he stopped loving me.
He died because he couldn’t stop loving her.
And I couldn’t die because I couldn’t leave this world without carrying a piece of her with me.
I went from dreaming of a love like theirs to praying I’d never find it.
Now, I was the only Ivanov without that kind of love. And I hoped the beast never found me.