Chapter 246

And then, before we can object, she just laughs and walks away.

“Are seriously we doing this?” I ask Daniel, leaning forward so he can hear my whisper.

He glances for a moment at his dad, who studies us with chagrin as Natalia moves back to his side. “I think we have to,” he murmurs as Kent gives us a small nod.

I groan and slump back into my chair, not wanting to do this at all.

Honestly, I liked the pattern that we’d set up in the past few weeks – waking up with Kent, riding my horse, plotting with Daniel, and then back through the wardrobe? It was nice.

But leave it to Natalia to throw a wrench in the plans.

__________________________ “Bowling?” I murmur as we pass through the door into what I actually admit is an incredibly chic two-lane vintage bowling alley in the basement of one of the city’s best restaurants. You can tell it’s been lovingly maintained and that the rest of the room has been designed thoughtfully as a complementary cocktail lounge.

“We are youths,” Daniel says, smirking down at me. “Youths like the bowling, remember? At least, in Natalia’s mind.”

I sigh and fiddle with the engagement ring on my left hand, looking around anxiously.

We’re some of the last to arrive, and I see that there are already about twenty people here. I’ve met some of them, while others are complete strangers. But my eyes go, of course, directly to the blonde at the back corner of the bar, speaking intently with a dark-haired girl I don’t know.

“The Russian dolls are here,” Daniel murmurs to me as we step further into the room. I smirk at our nickname for the five daughters of the Russian mob boss I’ve never met. “And they’re incoming...” he continues.

I rip my eyes away from Ivan to the group of girls headed right towards us, Mila at their head.

“Mila!” I say cheerfully, stepping forward and intercepting her, not letting her make the first move and ignore me as she did last time. “So good to see you again.”

I wrap her in a light hug, pressing a kiss to her cheek which she falsely returns. “You’re looking well, Fay,” she murmurs to me, giving me a slight smile, before hastily letting me go and moving to Daniel. But I turn and smirk to see that her sisters have already ranged around him, making it hard for her to find a place.

Fall For My Ex's Mafia Father Chapter 0245 I watch them for a moment, considering that it looks like a feeding frenzy when a slab of beef is lowered into a piranha tank. Apparently, their father told the sisters that he wants one of them to land Daniel – but he doesn’t really care which one. And now they’re all determined to win.

I catch Daniel’s eye for a moment and he gives me a helpless little shrug, which makes me laugh. So, I move away to the bar, letting him handle it. As I go I wonder what Natalia has promised Don Kozlov in exchange for one of his daughters marrying the boy she hopes will soon be her son.

Considering how hard they’re going after him, it must be something good.

I sigh as I reach the bar, watching Ivan from the corner of my eye as he chats and laughs with the dark-haired girl, wondering who she is. But I place my order with the bartender and wait patiently. I know he’ll come to me.

But even when the drinks are delivered, and I take one over to Daniel, and then come back to the bar to sit alone...

He doesn’t.

And I look over at Ivan, staring more blatantly now at him as he talks to the other girl. And I clench my teeth a little, unhappy at how jealous I suddenly find myself.

Honestly, after everything he’s said to me, everything he’s offered, he can’t even look at me now?

I know I’m being unfair – that I haven’t given him any encouragement in weeks, haven’t even texted him back. I’m aware that I have let him know with all of my actions that I am quite thoroughly Team Lippert now –

But as I watch him talking to this girl, smiling at her with his lopsided smirk, raising a hand to casually rub at the tattooed skin on his neck.

I realize that I fucking hate it.

Because Ivan? He’s supposed to look that way at me.