“Oh,” she whispers, blinking quickly. “You’re—um…Naked.” She licks her lips, then immediately looks like she wants to take it back. Or punch me.
I grin. It’s involuntary.
She clears her throat, turning slightly, like the window might offer salvation.
And then— The creak of a door.
“Why are you in Papa’s room?”
Alya steps just inside the doorway, already dressed for dinner—navy sweater, crisp blouse, those little patent shoes scuffed just enough to prove she’s been running, but not enough to get scolded for it.
She looks at me.
Then at Bella.
Then back again.
“You’re not dressed,” she says. “Dinner’s in fifteen minutes.”
Bella shifts beside me, tugging the robe tighter, like she wants to disappear into the floor.
Alya doesn’t blink. Doesn’t smile.
She turns her gaze to Bella, tilts her head, and asks—calmly: “Did you get lost?”
Bella’s lips part. No sound.
Alya waits exactly two seconds. Then adds—
“I can show you where your room is. It’s not this one.”
14
Bella
So, I took a wrong turn and ended up in his room.
I didn’tmeanto. I was just checking things out—getting a sense of the layout, the rhythm of this ridiculous mansion built on glass and testosterone. And maybe, yes, I was looking for the room with the best view. Sue me.
I knew we weren’t sleeping in the same room. And I was relieved.
Mostly.
Maybe.
Okay, fine. There’s a part of me, the quietly unhinged part I try not to feed after midnight, that wanted to know what it would be like to sleep next to someone likehim. Someone who looks like sin and smells like violence and owns a bedroom that could double as a Bond villain’s prayer closet.
But thenSmallshappened.
That tiny voice in the doorway. The perfectly timed: “Did you get lost?” And then the fatal blow: “I can show you where your room is. It’s not this one.”
Delivered with all the politeness of a hit job.
Now, I’m walking beside her, dripping in awkward tension and a luxury robe, while she leads me like a hotel concierge with a personal grudge.
“This way,” she says, not bothering to look back and check if I’m following.
Of course I’m following.
