Their Villain, The Mogul's Beloved

Chapter 37

On Natasha’s last two steps, both Lucas and Alexei held their breath. Lucas saw hope of reconciliation, while Alexei’s eyes darkened, plotting something unknown.

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Then, Natasha suddenly stopped and turned a corner. Under Lucas’s disbelieving gaze, she squatted down. She picked up a wooden gnome from beside the cabinet and dusted it off.

“Good thing it’s wood,” she snapped, glaring at a momentarily stunned Alexei. “If it were porcelain, you’d be in trouble.”

‘So she’s mad at me just because I knocked over her wooden gnome when I kicked Lucas,’ he thought. Alexei’s expression instantly brightened.

“I’ll buy you a hundred,” Alexei offered, grinning as if murderous rage hadn’t gripped him moments

ago.

However, Lucas’s face turned ashen. His lips moved soundlessly. He was unable to believe that in Natasha’s heart, he mattered less than a wooden gnome.

‘She saw Alexei’s violence, so how can she still talk to him so calmly, almost playfully? This isn’t right,’ he thought, his heart gnawed by anxiety.

“Natasha,” Lucas tried again, desperate to shatter their harmony. “I’m hurt.”

Natasha used to rush to him when he was injured. In college, after a dirty foul left him injured, she’d nearly fought the offenders herself.

‘She should be furious and concerned–not this detached calm,‘ he thought. ‘I can’t accept it.’

wooden gnome back. Her gaze, when it met Lucas, was flat. “Oh, go to the

strode over, dragging the devastated Lucas out with a deceptively

more hospitality.” His tone was gentle,

door slammed shut. Natasha hadn’t intervened. The light in Lucas’s eyes died.

got in the car. Sitting in the dark like a lost ghost, he longed for their happiness with envious

Impossible. I don’t believe Alexei. How could such a man have genuine feelings?

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4:35 pm PS

Chapter 37

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passed, and the rain still poured. Alexei never left the apartment. Lucas didn’t go to the hospital. He stared at Natasha’s window

in three days. I’d like to announce our engagement then.” Lucas would use any means to keep

Alexei

delicate, beautifully crafted rose entwined with thorns–elegant, striking, and perfect for

had sent a painting before leaving the country. Unable to

her neck, satisfied. He’d chosen it himself–it suited

said, turning to him, utterly sincere. “Not just for the

cemetery. Whatever Lucas said about his being dangerous, Alexei had shown more kindness to

guarded hedgehog, disarmed by small kindnesses, it bared its

closing the distance until their noses almost touched, breaths mingling. “Then

she stole a glance at his smiling eyes. ‘If this is what he wants, I don’t have much else to give in return,‘

is enough. Sex would be too

turned back to the table. “That’s