“For now.”
She studies me, suspicion etched into every line of her face. “What do you get out of this?”
I smile. “You.”
She snorts. “What do you want from me?”
“Everything,” I say easily, because there’s no value in pretending otherwise.
I turn and walk toward my office without checking to see if she follows. Curiosity always beats fear with women like her. When she steps inside the room behind me and stops short, I know she’s seen it.
The photograph.
It hangs alone on the wall behind my desk, framed simply, deliberately. Her, caught mid-movement at the masquerade, eyes sharp with focus and defiance. Not posed. Not smiling. Alive in a way most women in our world never are.
“You’ve been watching me,” she says, voice low.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since the masquerade. The night you stole from me.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and charged. Finally, she laughs, breathless and incredulous. “What did I take from you?” she asks, shaking her head with disbelief.
“My watch.” Anger simmers behind my words. I expend a lot of energy keeping it from breaking through. “Distinctive enough that you wouldn’t have been able to sell it, so I assume you threw it away.”
“Then you don’t know me as well as you think you do,” she spits back. “You really think I’d ever choose this? Willingly choose to take from strangers who have done nothing to harm me?”
I step closer until there’s no space left between us, close enough that she has to tilt her head back to meet my gaze. I don’t touch her. Touch would cheapen this moment.
“I think,” I say quietly, “that you felt you had no choice.”
Something fractures behind her eyes. Just a hairline crack. Enough.
“But I don’t think you understood the consequences of your actions, either.”
I step back and gesture toward the door. “Mariska will show you to your room. Dinner is in an hour. You’re free to explore the house.”
“And if I don’t come down for dinner?” she asks.
“Then I’ll assume you’re plotting,” I state with a grin.
Her mouth curves into a sharp, dangerous smile. “I already am.”
She turns and walks away, spine straight, steps steady, carrying her fury and her intelligence and her hunger for escape up the stairs like weapons she’s not ready to set down.
I watch until she’s gone.
Victoria
The room he gives me isn’t a cage or a dungeon. It’s a large bedroom with an ensuite and a dressing room decorated in pale colours that are neutral and calming, usually.
It sits at the top of the stairs behind a heavy door that opens with a soft click, like the house is polite enough to pretend it isn’t entirely sealed from the outside. The space inside is too large, too calm, too curated. A king-sized bed with dark linens. A sitting area by tall windows. A bathroom with stone and glass and expensive toiletries lined up like offerings. The kind of place you’d pay thousands a night for if you wanted to feel untouchable. The kind of place you’d put a woman if you wanted her to forget she’s being held.
I step inside anyway, because pretending I’m not impressed would be a lie, and lying to myself has never saved me. My boots sink into a thick carpet, and for a second, I hate the softness under my feet. It makes my body want to relax. Makes my shoulders want to drop. And I don’t get to relax. Not here. Not with Leonid downstairs like a predator who doesn’t need to bare his teeth.
I cross to the window and look out. The estate is spread across dark land, lights glowing low along paths and fencing. I can’t see the gate from here. I can’t even see the road. Everything is designed like a maze where the center is comfort and the edges are impossible.
