“Luka will take you back to our rooms,” Roman says, still not looking at me. “Go.”
I stand. My legs are shaking, but I make it to the door.
Just before I step through, I look back. He and Vadim are squared off at the head of the table, wine stains on the floor between them.
Roman’s shoulders are tight. His hands curl into fists at his sides, and I know, with that cold clarity I reserve for lab work, that I have just made his night a hundred times harder. I lit the fuse. Now I get to wait and see what explodes.
* * *
I’m still in the red dress when I hear the door. I told myself I was going to change, that I was going to get out of the silk and into something with actual fabric and underwear and dignity.
Instead, I went straight to the window and stood there, looking at Moscow lights and pretending I could pick out the plane that took Mishka away from all of this.
The door hits the wall, making the frame shake. Roman enters. Tie gone. The top buttons of his shirt undone. Hair is a little less perfect. Eyes flat.
He closes the door very gently behind him. That’s somehow worse than the slam.
We stare at each other. The silence is heavy and mean. My heartbeat is so loud I’m sure he can hear it.
“Take off the necklace,” he says finally.
My fingers go straight to the clasp as they belong to someone else. The metal is warm now from my skin, but the second it leaves my body, I’m colder. Smaller. I lay it carefully on the dresser because if I drop his dead mother’s necklace, I will not survive the night.
“The dress,” he says.
I reach for the zipper at my lower back. My hands are shaking. The stupid little tab slips. I can’t get a grip.
He crosses the room in three long strides. “Turn around.”
He doesn’t wait to see if I obey. He just takes my shoulders and moves me, rough enough that my heels skid on the floor. His fingers find the zipper immediately. The sound as he drags it down feels obscene in the quiet room. The dress loosens around me, silk slackening, cool air hitting the strip of my spine.
“Let it fall,” he says.
“Roman, I was just—”
“Let. It. Fall.”
I swallow and let go. The silk slides down my body, catches on my hips for a second, then drops to the floor.
There is nothing between his eyes and my skin now.
The heels keep my back arched, my chest forward, my ass lifted. Great design if you’re going for “fuckable statue.” Less great for standing naked in front of the man who owns your life.
My arms twitch up automatically to cover myself. He catches both wrists before I make it.
“You put yourself on display,” he says quietly. “At dinner.”
“That is not what I—”
“Now I look.”
He lets my wrists go, stepping back just far enough that I can’t grab anything to cover myself without making things worse.
He circles me, checking every inch of me.
My skin prickles everywhere his gaze touches. I feel more naked than if he’d put his hands on me.
“You disobeyed me,” he says. “I gave you simple rules for tonight. You broke everyone.”
