Keeps her mind busy. From what? From the isolation he’d imposed on her? From the cold shoulder he’d been giving her since their wedding? From the fact that her own husband treated her like an enemy instead of a wife?
“I miss you guys too,” she continued, her voice getting softer. “More than you know. But this is my life now, and I’m making the best of it. Viktor... he’s complicated, but he’s not cruel. Not really.”
Not cruel. Jesus Christ, what did it say about him that she had to qualify that statement?
“I have to go,” she said. “But call me tonight? I want to hear all about your gallery opening.”
She hung up and stood there for a moment, staring at her phone with an expression so lost and vulnerable that it felt like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart with a fist.
This was why she’d escaped the compound. Not to rebel against him or test his authority, but because she was lonely. Because he’d married her and then abandoned her, left her rattling around in his fortress with nothing but books andgardens for company while he nursed his wounded pride and planned his next move in this twisted game they were playing.
He should have marched over there and dragged her home. Should have given her the lecture he’d prepared about respecting boundaries and following rules. Instead, he found himself backing deeper into the shadows, watching as she wiped her eyes quickly and straightened her shoulders.
She walked into the boutique with renewed purpose, and he followed at a distance, positioning himself where he could see through the large front windows. She moved through the racks with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what she was looking for, pulling out dresses and holding them up to herself in the mirror.
A red silk number that would have hugged every curve. A black cocktail dress that was simultaneously elegant and sinful. An emerald green gown that would have made her eyes look like jewels.
Each one would have been stunning on her, he realized with a jolt of unwanted desire. Each one would have shown off that body he remembered so well, would have made her the center of attention in any room she entered.
She disappeared into the dressing room, and he told himself to leave. To go back to the car and wait for her to come home on her own terms. But he couldn’t make himself move.
When she emerged in the red dress, he forgot how to breathe.
The silk moved like liquid fire over her curves, highlighting every line and hollow he’d once known by heart. She turned in front of the three-way mirror, studying herself from every angle, and the look of pure feminine satisfaction on her face was more intoxicating than any drug.
She was beautiful. Not just pretty or attractive, but genuinely, breathtakingly beautiful in a way that made men stop and stare and forget their own names. And she was his. His wife, wearing a dress he’d paid for, looking like every fantasy he’d ever had come to life.
The thought of taking that dress off her, of sliding the silk down her body inch by torturous inch, hit him like a physical blow. He could imagine her skin warming under his hands, could picture the way she’d arch against him, could almost hear the soft sounds she used to make when he touched her just right.
Fuck. That was not the time or place for such thoughts.
She tried on the black dress next, then the green one, each change revealing new angles and curves that made his mouth go dry. She looked confident and radiant and completely in her element, like shopping for beautiful clothes was some kind of armor against the loneliness she’d confessed to her sister.
And he was the reason she needed that armor.
The guilt hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest. Here he’d been, so focused on his revenge, so determined to make her pay for what she’d done to him four years ago, that he’d forgotten she was a person with feelings and needs and vulnerabilities of her own.
She’d married him for her family’s happiness. She’d given up her freedom, her independence, her chance at happiness with someone who might actually love her back, all to protect the people she cared about. And what had he given her in return?
A cold, empty mansion. A husband who barely spoke to her unless it was to issue orders or deliver insults. A life so isolated and joyless that she had to escape to shopping malls just to remember what it felt like to be human.
He was a bastard. A cruel, selfish bastard who’d been so blinded by his own pain that he hadn’t stopped to consider hers.
She settled on the red dress, plus a pair of heels that probably cost more than most people’s rent. As she paid with his credit card, he saw her smile at the sales clerk and noticed the way she made small talk about the weather and the upcoming holiday season.
She was starving for human connection, he realized, for someone to talk to her like she mattered, like she was more than just a political pawn or a convenient target for someone else’s anger.
When she left the boutique, he didn’t follow. Instead, he sat in his car and watched her walk down the street, his black credit card apparently forgotten in her purse, her new dress bag swinging from her arm.
She looked happy. Not completely happy, but happier than he’d seen her since their wedding day. And he’d been planning to destroy that, to drag her home and punish her for daring to find a moment of joy in the prison he’d created for her.
What kind of man did that make him?
His phone buzzed with a text from Marcus asking if he wanted him to pick up Mrs. Nikolai, and he stared at the message for a long time before typing back:Let her finish her shopping. She’ll come home when she’s ready.
Because maybe, for once, he could give her that much. Maybe he could let her have this one afternoon of freedom without turning it into another battle in their ongoing war.
Maybe he could start acting like a husband instead of a captor.
