“It’s not true,” Katherine said in Russian so that both servants could understand her. But all she got was a giggle from the younger girl and a smirk from the other, which ignited her temper out of proportion to the provocation. “Get out! Both of you, out! By necessity I’ve become accustomed to attending myself. I don’t need your help. Out!”
When they just stood there, struck dumb by her outburst and a little wary now, Katherine stalked into the bathchamber and slammed yet another door shut. She tore off her clothes, unmindful of buttons that didn’t give way soon enough, and prayed the bath would relax her. It didn’t.
How dare he do this to her? How dare he let everyone here think she was his mistress, actually announce that fact by stipulating where she would sleep, at the top of his lungs no less, so that even the deaf would hear it? He might as well have told Vladimir to install her in his own room!
She was too agitated to remain in the porcelain tub. A silk robe had been laid out, and she yanked it on, not even bothering to towel herself dry first or wonder whose robe it was. The peach material stuck to her instantly, but she didn’t notice that either.
He wasn’t going to get away with this. She wanted the matter put straight immediately. And she wouldnotremain in the White Room even for one night. A barn would be preferable, a simple pile of hay, a pallet on the floor, even another hammock, anywhere, as long as it wasn’t near Dimitri’s bedroom.
The servants were gone when she left the bathchamber as forcefully as she had entered it. The bedroom was empty, her dinner tray gone. A small fire had been banked in the fireplace, a cooling breeze from the windows stirring the embers and causing the few lamps about the room to flicker. Smoke spiraled up from one that had gone out.
Katherine stared at the smoke for a few moments, trying to concentrate, trying to compose herself into a more reasonable frame of mind. Her efforts were useless. She had to have it out with Dimitri before she could even hope to calm down. And with that thought she jerked open the connecting door again, intending to have Maksim find Dimitri for her. But the valet had gone. Seated at a small table, finishing a late dinner, was her nemesis himself,
Katherine was thrown off track for a moment, enough to say automatically, “I beg your pardon,” and in the next breath, outrage recalled, “No, I don’t. You’ve gone too far this time, Alexandrov.” She pointed a stiff finger behind her. “I will not stay in that room!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s right next to yours!”
Dimitri set down his knife and fork and sat back, giving her his full attention. “You think I will come uninvited into your room, when I have had the opportunity to do so ever since we first met?”
“That wasn’t my thought, no. I just don’t want that particular room.”
“You haven’t told me why.”
“I did. You weren’t listening.” She began pacing in front of the door, arms crossed beneath her breasts, body stiff, her hair whipping about each time she turned. “If I have to be more specific, it’s because that room is part of this one, it’s part of the master suite, and I don’t belong in it. The implication is unacceptable, and you knowexactlywhat I mean!”
“Do I?”
Her eyes stabbed him briefly at this impassive reaction. “I’m not your mistress! I’m not going to be your mistress, and I won’t have your people thinking I am!”
Instead of replying, he simply stared at her. He was too nonchalant. Where was the anger that always arose when she defied his wishes? He had wanted her in the White Room. Why wasn’t he arguing with her about it? For that matter, what had happened to mollify his temper since their last meeting? He usually brooded for days after their more heated encounters. Here she was itching for a fight, her blood racing with the need, and he wouldn’t oblige her.
“Well?” she demanded.
“It’s too late to consider moving you tonight.”
“Nonsense—”
“Believe me, Katya, it’s too late.”
There was innuendo in his tone that indicated she should know why it was too late. She stopped, eyes narrowed on him, anger increasing because he was being so ambiguous. Couldn’t he see she was in no condition to play word games? She was so furious she could barely think straight, could barely stand still. She was so furious that she could feel heat radiating from her body, hear her heart pounding in her ears, sense the blood pulsing through her veins. And he just sat there staring at her, waiting, yes, waiting, as if some miraculous understanding would suddenly dawn on her.
It did. As she tried to remain still, she found it impossible, literally impossible not to move in some way. She had felt this way once before, and anger hadn’t caused those exaggerated symptoms any more than it did these.
In shock, Katherine took a step toward Dimitri, then fairly jumped back, realizing she didn’t dare get too near him now. Oh, God, she could almost wish for ignorance, for the bliss of not knowing what was going to happen next. But she did know, knew there was nothing she could do to stop the maelstrom that was already building inside her and would soon change her personality and have her groveling at his feet.
Katherine recoiled from the thought, exploding in a burst of righteous fury. “Damn you, Dimitri,youdid this, didn’t you?”
“I’m sorry, little one.”
He was. There was regret in his expression, even a flash of self-contempt. It didn’t appease her in the least, made her even more enraged, if that were possible.
“Blast you to hell and back!” she screamed “You told me I would never be given that foul drug again! You told me to trust you! Is this how I can trust you?How could you do this to me!”
Each word stabbed into Dimitri’s conscience. He had already agonized over that same question a hundred times today. He had found enough answers for himself while his temper still raged, then had gotten drunk when the answers didn’t hold up once he cooled off.
“I gave the order in a moment of anger, Katya, and then left. I returned to Alexey’s house, where we stopped last night. I drank myself into oblivion. I wouldn’t be here now if one of his servants hadn’t dropped a tray outside the room where I was sleeping it off.”
