Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
“How about a party for your birthday?” Sergei suggested after a moment, recalling that the item was listed on the Moderate category. He had actually never been one to throw any kind of party, not even for his family members, but for Fredericka he would gladly make an exception.
“Please don’t,” she said with a light shudder. “I don’t need additional reminders that I’m going to turn older.” And for three months, it would also mean she would be seven years older than Sergei, too.
The thought made her mentally flinch.
Six was bad enough, really, but seven just made her positively feel like, well, a cougar.
The billionaire’s gaze narrowed at her. “You should really stop caring so much about the difference in our age.”
“Easy for you to say,” she retorted. “You’re not the one who’s older.”
“It’s just six years,” he pointed out exasperatedly.
“When I have my birthday and until you don’t turn twenty-six, it will be seven,” she grumbled, “and that’s almost like a decade!”
“You’re being ridiculous. No one can tell the difference, and besides—-” The billionaire’s tone turned dry. “Between the two of us, we both know who’s the adult one—-”
“And that’s me,” she finished firmly. She was the adult one between them...so why was it again that she was spending too much time with Sergei Grachyov? A random memory fluttered in her mind, a time when she and her friends had attended Family Day at Christopoulos University and the three of them had suffered serious pangs of envy at seeing Mairi Tanner-Leventis, an American schoolteacher who had once been rumored to be a scheming gold-digger, enjoying her happy-ever-after in the company of her Greek billionaire husband and baby girl.
I want that for myself, Fredericka thought glumly. Or if she couldn’t have love, then maybe she could at least experience the passion even just once. As soon as the thought popped up, an idea began to form in her mind.
An idea that might also just put an end to her grossly inadvisable infatuation with a younger man—-
“Do you have any plans for your birthday?” Sergei was asking.
“Umm, yes.” Fredericka cleared her throat. “I actually do.” Just now, actually, but he didn’t have to know that.
Sergei gazed at Fredericka curiously, having noticed the way she had suddenly started chewing on her lip. That look on her lovely face meant she was lost in her thoughts, and they appeared serious enough to have her nervous.
“Won’t you share with me what your plans are?”
“Umm...”
“I take it I’m not a part of it?” he asked dryly, easily guessing the reason for her discomfort.
She slowly nodded.
“Is it something just for you Alyx and Anneke?”
She shook her head just as slowly.
Sergei’s tone became faintly puzzled. “Then what?”
“It’s...a...secret?”
Sergei stopped smiling. For as long as he knew her, Fredericka had always been vehemently against any kind of duplicity. Secrets were synonymous to lies in her book, which was why the fact that she was trying to keep something from him now made the billionaire both wary and suspicious.
“You know I’ll find out sooner or later,” he told her lazily, “so why don’t we just cut to the chase and you tell me now what your plans are.”
“It’s my birthday,” she tried to prevaricate, “so my plans are my business—-”
“Erie.”
She gulped.
“What,” the billionaire asked very softly, “are your plans for your birthday?”
She mumbled her answer in a nearly inaudible voice, but when the billionaire suddenly cursed, Fredericka knew he had still heard her, and she gulped again.
“What the fuck, Erie? Why the hell are you going to meet with Julian Alexeyev on your birthday?”
“I was thinking...” Taking a deep breath, she lifted her chin and say, “I’m thinking of dating him.”
His jaw clenched. “Did he ask you out?” Julian. It was always that fucking Julian Alexeyev!
“I don’t need to explain anything—-”
“Answer the question!” His fury worsened at the flash of defiance in her gray eyes, and leaning forward, he grabbed her by the shoulders, snarling, “Answer me, dammit—-”
“Because I’m tired of being a virgin!”
The words were out before she realized what she was saying, and as the billionaire stared at her in disbelief, something inside her started to unravel and suddenly she couldn’t stop talking.
“I’m never going to fall in love, and I know that. I’m okay with that. But what I’m not okay with is turning forty and withering before I ever have sex!” Her voice started to rise. “So I will have sex, and I will lose my virginity, and—-”
“Then FUCK ME!”
Chapter Twelve
Fredericka
A penny could have dropped, and it would have sounded like a bomb going off. The silence in the room was charged with tension, and for several moments all I could do was stare at the billionaire, unable to believe what I had just heard.
What the hell had he just said?
And almost as if he had heard my question, Sergei’s expression hardened, and his tone was just as hard as he said with slow precision, “I’ve wanted your virginity the first time I met you. So fuck me.”