Crash into Me: A BWWM Russian Billionaire Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

and his eyes snapped to her. “You cannot do this. You have a responsibility to this family and to yourself. This mess you are making of your life is not fulfilling it.”
    He frowned at that, already knowing that wherever this conversation was heading, he wasn’t going to like it. “To this family?” Alexei asked.
    “Of course. You are your father’s son. His heir.”
    That got a laugh out of him. “I know this might come as a surprise, Mother, but we don’t live in the middle ages. No one has heirs anymore.”
    “You know exactly what I mean, Alexei. Your father intended for you to take over the family business, our accounts, to keep things running smoothly in the event that he ever-” She broke off there, letting out a heavy sigh.
    And yes, he knew all of that. He’d gone to business school and sat through long, droning conversations with his father to learn about the way the family fortune had been made. How he was one day supposed to keep that going, but it all sounded so dull to him. He’d expected to have at least another ten or fifteen years before he’d have to start caring about all of that, but now that his father was dead…
    “Vera,” Alexei said. “Vera should do it. She’s better at any of this stuff than I am. She knows more about it.”
    “Vera is not her father’s son,” Veronika said. “She’s not his heir. Your father wanted you to do it, and you will.”
    “Way to be sexist, Mother.”
    “ Stop it, ” she snapped. “Just stop it. Is everything a joke to you, Alexei? The continued success of this family, is that a joke? Do you just not care?” Before he could say anything, she was holding up a hand and continuing. “This isn’t a negotiation. You will do your duty to this family. You will stop spending your time with people who are beneath you. You will stop behaving like a child. You will pull yourself together and take on your father’s responsibilities. You will get married, and-”
    “ Excuse me ?” Alexei cut in. “Would you run that last one by me again?”
    “You will get married,” his mother said. “You will cease spending your time and money on these...streetwalkers and floozies, and you will take a wife. A respectable wife, mind you.”
    “What does that have to do with me taking over the family business?” Alexei demanded, incredulous.
    “It’s a part of being respectable,” Veronika informed him. “Settling down, starting a family. Your father and I were betrothed to each other when were mere teenagers. You will be thirty in less than four years, and it’s high time you got serious about your future.”
    Alexei couldn’t do more than stare at his mother for the moment. He knew that this was a conversation that they were going to have to have eventually, but his father had been dead for just over a week and a half, and already things were slipping out of his control. Get married ? The rest of it, sure, he’d been expecting it, but getting married?
    Did having a wife somehow make him better at business or something? How was that even relevant?
    While he was gaping at his mother, Vera walked back in on the heels of Milla, who was carrying a tray of drinks. Vera sipped hers looking smug, and Alexei didn’t even have to ask if she’d known about this.
    He picked up the vodka tonic that had been pushed towards him and downed it in one swallow. “No,” he said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “No,” he reiterated. “ No. I get that everyone expects me to follow in Father’s footsteps and take over the business and the accounts and all of that. I understand. I always knew that was going to fall to me, but you can’t sit here and tell me when I’m supposed to get married. That’s a personal decision.”
    His mother sniffed and sipped her drink. “Do not romanticize this, Alexei. The majority of marriages in our world are business transactions, and yours will probably be no different.”
    “Well that’s depressing.”
    “Don’t be naive. Love is all well