Wild Billionaire Romance - Chapter 24: Chapter 24

She was a temptation he couldn’t afford, but letting her go was not an option.
Marat was the face of Volkov Industries. With his movie star good looks, he attracted class and money to the multi-billion dollar corporation, not to mention all the right PR. But being born with the face of an angel had its disadvantages. Expected to entertain associates, Marat’s activities were anything but celestial. And yes, it was exhausting.
Sent on an errand to Sin City in the name of business, Marat needed a diversion. The curvy goddess serving drinks was exactly what this playboy billionaire craved. He was not looking for forever, but some temptations were too good to let go.
Destiny Valdez ran away to Vegas as a teen with her head full of dreams. A dozen years later, those dreams were dust. Pulling a double shift with her slimy boss giving her a hard time was not how she’d planned to spend her birthday.
But that was life.
She never expected a proposition from one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. Daring her to take what she wanted, Marat Volkov presented the type of opportunity she only ever fantasized about. A night in his bed sounded exactly like what she needed. Waking up married? Not so much.
She thought he was playing, but keeping his curvy Dumplin’ was a wild temptation he could not resist.
MARAT
The breeze felt cold against the exposed skin on my arms as I stood in short sleeves, hugging Michaela to me.
My niece was warm and bundled in a pretty little frock with a thick sweater and a matching knit hat on top of her mass of chestnut colored curls, so I knew she was fine.
She pointed at the birds and spouted delightful gibberish I was all too happy to listen to. I loved my niece. That child was as close as I was ever going to get to fatherhood. Visiting my brother’s house was something I made it a point to do regularly. It was like getting my own little family fix.
My brother had lucked out the day he found his Zaika, that was his pet name for my sister-in-law. Adrik was a hard man, but Sofia fit his rough edges just fine.
He’d met her at a party and just like that, he was a goner. For a powerful billionaire used to getting his own way, Sofia was quite the challenge.
Adrik had stalked her like the wolf he was until she said yes when he proposed. It never failed to amaze me how readily she gave the wolf her heart, and now, a baby on top of that.
It was surreal in some ways. I never would have thought Adrik would find someone who not only accepted him but loved him just as obsessively as he loved her.
Sofia was truly his soulmate, and I was happy for him, for them both.
Honestly.
Of course, sometimes I felt a certain green monster sitting on my shoulder, but I did my best to ignore the miserable fucker.
I didn’t want to think too much about the fact I had never been in love and likely never would be. And I sure as fuck wasn’t going to voice that aloud.
How pathetic would that be? Still, I’d bet it would make headlines. Nothing set the vultures circling overhead quite like humiliation and despair.
Handsome billionaire cries himself to sleep every night in his cold, lonely, enormous bed.
Okay, I didn’t cry.
But I’d been sleeping alone for months now. By choice, of course.
No, that wasn’t conceit. I knew all too well if I snapped my fingers a queue would form outside my front door full of beautiful women willing to fill that empty spot.
I just wasn’t interested. Nothing interested me much anymore. Life had grown stale. Or maybe just my life as a playboy. There had to be something more to it, didn’t there?
“Marat?” Sofia’s voice reached me.
My sister-in-law was likely looking for her daughter, but before I could answer she’d already started her next barrage of questions. The woman could yap, god love her.
“Marat? Do you have Michaela? Where are you? Oh, there you are, and I see you do have my defiant little girl in your arms outside without her shoes again,” she mock-scolded before grinning and reaching for the baby.
“She’s fine,” I assured her.
I knew Sofia well enough to realize she wasn’t actually mad, she was simply protective. And wasn’t that amazing?
Adrik and I never really had a mother. Or a father. Much less a protective one. They were both murdered by the Russian Bratva over some drug deal when I was still quite small.
My brother had taken on the burden of raising me after that. He’d used brute force, keen intelligence, and lethal cunning to get ahead in the criminal underworld. Josef had joined him soon after, and the man had been part of our fucked up little family ever since.
Adrik had always been so single-minded. But everything changed when he met Sofia.
The little Jersey girl had broken down his barriers, turning the Dark Wolf into a family man. And I got a ringside view.
It was fantastic. Also, nice to know she was as fiercely protective of their daughter as he was. I was just surprised protective parents still existed.
Either way, Sofia needn’t have worried. I wouldn’t have allowed my precious niece to step foot on the damp ground in only her socks.
“Hello, my sweet princess,” she cooed, before turning her smiling face to me. “Thank you, Uncle Marat.”
My chest tightened whenever she called me that. Sofia was the kindest person I knew, and I was grateful to have her for my niece’s mother.
The terrace was still wet after the morning’s rain shower, and without my arms around my niece, whom I’d been cradling, I felt the chill to my bones.
“Oh, thank you for the doll house by the way,” Sofia said. “It arrived this morning. Along with the paper.”
“My pleasure,” I replied, before pausing.
The paper? Fuck.
Michaela just had her first birthday and though I’d already showered her with gifts at the luxurious party my brother had thrown her, this last one was a special order.
It was a replica of the house they lived in, complete with little dolls and furniture handcrafted by a master toy maker from St. Petersburg.
We shared the date, but turning one was a helluva lot more exciting than turning thirty. I kissed my niece on her soft curls before handing her over to her mother. My lips were still tingling from the pressure minutes later.
“Yes, the paper. Another headline featuring the face of Volkov Industries,” she teased, and I knew she didn’t mean it.
But it still struck me like a slap. The face of Volkov Industries was seen at a dinner party hosted by one of the companies I’d been looking to purchase for my new greener incentive.
I wasn’t on the prowl like those damn paparazzi suggested. And the woman they’d photographed me standing beside was the wife of some young scientist. I didn’t even know her name.
But the papers loved to villainize a rich Casanova, and I often made the news.
“Ooh, her cheeks are nice and warm. I thought she’d be cold,” Sofia murmured, taking my mind off the headline and refocusing it on my niece.
She was too precious for words. I smiled as Sofia, good mom that she was, removed Michaela’s hat and sweater now that she was indoors.
“She wanted to see outside, but I made sure she was warm enough,” I explained, smiling at the picture perfect Volkov females.
How Adrik had convinced Sofia to marry him, I had no idea. But it had been a whirlwind and somewhat fantastical romance.
I couldn’t believe two years had passed since then. Watching my hard, taciturn brother turn into a family man had proved interesting. I didn’t think he had it in him.
Not that it was his fault. We’d simply had no examples to learn from. What I remembered of our parents was arguing and griping. I remembered being cold and hungry. I remembered being scared.
It wasn’t a good childhood.
Adrik and I came from nothing. We’d literally scraped ourselves out of the gutter to get to where we were, with him doing a lot of the heavy lifting since he was ten years my senior.
After he met Sofia, and his obsession with her became apparent, change was inevitable. I stepped up, thrilled to finally be able to repay him in any way I could.
Taking a more active role in Volkov Industries proved challenging. I dove into work headfirst, eager to prove I had the aptitude for it. I hadn’t been sitting on my ass, getting photographed by paparazzi, and doing nothing all this time.
I’d been learning the business, training my mind and body to keep up with my brother. Studying reports, keeping up with environmental concerns, and working on my own projects to make us more environmentally conscientious.
Finally, I was able to be of some use so Adrik could enjoy the family he fought so hard to secure. He deserved happiness, and I would never stand in the way of that.
Besides, I loved my niece and my sister-in-law, in a strictly platonic, familial sense, of course. They were good for him. And it was my duty and my privilege to take on some of the burden of our position.
Being a Volkov was far from easy. And that wasn’t me whining poor little rich boy. We were responsible for billions of dollars and the fates of several thousand people depended on us. Even whole governments.
Adrik always said rich men were more ruthless than mobsters and the only thing separating them were a few words on paper signed into law. He was right. I’d seen men receive honors and applause from the public who were responsible for oil spills, deforestation, pharmaceutical disaster, and the general withholding of aid and care from the public.
The world was fucked up. I couldn’t solve all of its problems, but I could help my brother.
There was a time when Adrik thought I’d pursued Sofia, but I would never have crossed that line with my brother. I had to admit, it hurt that he thought I would. But I understood why.
I’d been playing the role of billionaire playboy for so long sometimes even I believed that was all I had to offer.
After all, I was the face of Volkov Industries.
It was my toothy grin plastered on our company website. And my visage that had been splashed across the media for years.
I was the better known Volkov brother. The attention seeker. The party goer.
Sought after by women from all over the world. Some wanted to win me. Some just wanted to fuck me. Others just craved to be near me. Happy to bask in the periphery of my fame.
I’d been named the sexiest man alive not once, but twice.
Not a lie. Not a flex. Just fact.
My face, my name, and my net worth had been splashed across whatever magazine it was that thought putting me on the cover would sell more copies.
It did.
I paid attention to none of it. Men called me lucky. Rich men. Powerful men. They invited me to their parties, hoping I would attend, elevating their social standing with my presence.
Some even told me they wished they were me. Like being Marat Volkov was some lofty aspiration.
They wished they had this face I was born with. These features I did nothing to gain.
And I couldn’t understand it. Not. For. One. Solitary. Minute.
My brother was the better man by a long shot. Adrik was brilliant. He was powerful, loyal, and ambitious. He was worthy of admiration.
Couldn’t they see that?
My brother worked harder than anyone I knew. He’d battled impossible odds to bring us out of the cruel poverty we’d lived in to a level of society I could never have imagined.
Hell, sometimes I still couldn’t. Back when I was a child, freezing on the streets of Moscow, food and shelter were the major concerns. But Adrik took care of it. He took care of us. Of me.
He did things that would make most people’s blood curl. But now, Adrik was one of the most successful and respected men in the business world. And in the underworld, he was still one of the most feared.
A couple of years had passed since the Dark Wolf made an appearance, but no one forgot him. How could they?
The name alone represented a level of cunning, a single-minded ruthlessness that had brought governments to their knees. Adrik was the Dark Wolf, and he earned his reputation through blood, sweat, and tears—mostly from others.
And yet I was the one they envied.
What the fuck was wrong with people? I was nothing.
Just the fucking face of Volkov Industries. The pretty party boy. A walking billboard for the iniquitous rich we rubbed elbows with.
Fact was, I did nothing to deserve my face. My looks were not something I earned or worked for. They were just a happy accident.
A stupid fucking coincidence.
But people looked at me like I was some damn chosen one. Like I’d won the genetic lottery.
I checked my watch as Sofia kissed Michaela on the cheek a dozen more times, blowing raspberries on her baby soft skin and making her squeal with giggles. I grinned. The child was the perfect combination of her parents.
She had Sofia’s softness, and Adrik’s determination. Big fat curls danced around her cherubic face, but she had the Volkov eyes. Dark and intense. Michaela was going to be a heartbreaker. Hell, she was already.
Poor Adrik.