I told Andrei all the details Aurora had given me. There wasn’t a lot there, but enough to get his attention.

“I will deal with her.”

“Is there a problem here?” Ivan asked, coming out of the main room to talk to us.

“No, no problem. A simple misunderstanding, but that is all,” I said.

Andrei agreed and made his way into the room.

“Your wife is lonely,” Ivan said.

I nodded and went to go into the room.

“What was that?” Ivan asked.

“Andrei believed he could talk about my wife disrespectfully, and I told him he couldn’t. It was a misunderstanding.”

“Your wife’s not pregnant yet.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Knock her up. I don’t want this treaty to blow up in our faces,” Ivan said.

Movement from behind him had me cursing.

I saw Aurora’s hair. “Duty calls,” I said.

I walked into the dance floor and saw Aurora had moved as far away from the doorway as possible. She caught sight of me and went to the first man.

He clearly turned down a dance as she withdrew into herself and tried to shrink away from people being able to see her. I closed the distance between us, stepping into her space. I grabbed her arm.

“Dance with me,” I said.

“No. I don’t want to dance with you.” She didn’t make a scene, but she was no match for me either. I easily led her onto the dance floor.

With my hand at the base of her back and the other holding her hand, there was nowhere for her to go. I held her captive.

“You’re not playing fair,” she said.

“I never play fair.” I glanced around the room, keeping an eye on any potential attackers. Andrei had a scared-looking Bethany in his arms. That bitch was going to know not to mess with my woman. “You asked that man to dance,” I said.

She scoffed. “I don’t know why. He told me no.”

“That would be my fault.”

“Why?”

“My presence scares the shit out of people. They all know you’re my wife. No one will dance with you. Unless you’re Ivan, of course.”

“Great. You scare everyone. I should have known.”

“Men would love to dance with you. I don’t want anyone else to dance with you but me.”

“Do you intend to control my life?” she asked.

“You’re my wife. So yes.”

Her cheeks clenched. “What about … getting me pregnant?”

“Do you want to talk about that or pretend you didn’t hear?”

“You’re only sleeping with me to get me pregnant?”

“No. I’m fucking you because I want to. Pregnant is a by-product of fucking you.”

“You’re still doing it because your boss is telling you to.” She stopped dancing. Her eyes filled with tears, and she stared at me, almost accusing me.

I took a deep breath, grabbed her hand, and led her off the dance floor.

There was enough commotion going on that no one would miss us.