Ransome lets me leave the penthouse that is my jail cell only after I’ve agreed to take a shower and put on a forest green dress that he remembers me wearing on my second day on the job.
The fact he recalls what I was wearing months ago on a specific day tells me one of two things:
He found the less-than-professional, hip-hugging dress that showed off both my ass and my tits attractive as I’d hoped…
Or…
He thought I looked thirsty in it and it was the giveaway that I was obsessed with his attention.
Either way, positive or negative, it made an impression. And it’s the dress he wants me to wear tonight as he takes me outto Cherie, one of NYC’s most coveted and expensivecocktail lounges. Never could I have imagined going on a date with Ransome Rozanov. Not a business dinner—adate.
I also never imagined that the object of my affection would also turn out to be part of the Russian mafia, yet here we are.
He guides me into the dark, swanky room, to a high top table right in the middle of everything. I haven’t been to many restaurants with Ransome save for a couple of Apex business meetings where he required the service of his assistant, yet somehow, I feel like sitting in the middle of the room isn’t his M.O. If anything, I feel like he usually has a VIP room or at the very least, a hidden corner with eyelines to every exit.
Apparently, I don’t know this man as well as I thought I did. Because as we wind through the tables, the eyes of other men pull away from their dates to look at me. And with that, his hand falls to my lower back, warm, firm and possessive.
I know better than to think it’s because he is interested in me. He’s not. Interested in what he can obtain from me, maybe. Interested in using me for gain? Sure. But not interested inme.
Ransome helps me onto a leather stool before positioning himself across from me. He’s wearing a fitted black suit with a deep plum button-down underneath.
Purple.
This is not an Apex meeting. And it’s not a boorish Tuesday at the office meeting, either. It now makes sense. Purple is for dinners and lunches and drinks with his father and the other Rozanovs and sometimes, the Chadovichs.
Purple is for the Bratva.
“Good evening, Mr. Rozanov,” a waitress says as she stops at our table. “Would you like your usual?”
“Yes,” Ransome answers her with no emotion in his voice.
“And for the lady?” she asks.
I open my mouth to order a margarita, but before I can say anything at all, Ransome talks for me. “She will have a gin and tonic.”
“Of course.”
The waitress makes her way to the bar and I stare at Ransome incredulously. But he doesn’t even bother to look at me. Instead, he scans the menu, his jaw taut and posture ridged.
“What the hell?” I ask and immediately, I see a crack in his stony expression. He doesn’t like that I’m swearing. Well, I don’t like that he’s being a dick.
“A girlfriend of Ransome Rozanov watches her mouth,” he growls, setting the menu down and dragging his eyes up to meet mine.
“And a boyfriend of Amara Parker doesn’t assume she likes gin and tonics. Which, by the way, I don’t.”
Ransome’s gaze studies me hard but I don’t so much as blink. My heart, however, is slamming against my chest like a jackhammer at the intensity. Under any other pretenses, I would have drank anything he ordered me.
But that was before he threatened me and locked me in his penthouse.
“You do understand that this is a test, right? An interview of sorts?”
