He wanted to let her in.
I turned away from the window.Poured myself a glass of whisky.Held it up to the light and watched the amber liquid catch the fire.Then I set it down without drinking.
I would be colder next time.Harder.I would take what I wanted without hesitation, without the confusing mess of emotions that had plagued me tonight.I would be the monster she expected.
But even as I made the promise, I knew it was a lie.Something had shifted between us.Something I couldn’t take back.
And despite everything, despite the revenge I’d planned and the distance I’d sworn to keep and the warnings the wolf had been screaming for days, I was looking forward to seeing her again.
The realization terrified me more than anything had in years.
12
LENA
The sheets smelled wrong.
That was my first thought, swimming up through layers of unfamiliar dreams.Wrong sheets, wrong light, wrong mattress.I blinked at the ceiling, which was too high and painted the soft gray of storm clouds, and for three disorienting seconds I had no idea where I was.
Then the memories hit.
Piano.His mouth on my breast, hot and demanding.The way he’d sucked my nipple until I’d cried out, the sound echoing off the walls of his bedroom like a confession I couldn’t take back.His hand sliding down my stomach, stopping just short of where I needed it most.“But not tonight.”My own voice, shaking with frustration: “You’re a bastard.”His smile, knowing and patient: “Yes.I am.”
I sat up too fast.The room spun, then settled.
A bedroom.Not mine.Twice the size of my apartment at the hotel, with tall windows draped in charcoal velvet and furniture that belonged in a museum.The bed was a four-poster monstrosity of dark wood, linens that felt obscenely expensive against my bare legs.Winter light filtered through a gap in the curtains, landing in pale stripes across the Persian rug.
Bare legs.Because I was wearing his robe.
I looked down at the heavy charcoal silk pooling around me, and his scent hit me like a fist to the chest.That particular darkness that was purely him, expensive and masculine and infuriatingly familiar.It was in the sheets.In the robe.In the very air of this room, as if he’d marked every surface as his territory.As if even in his absence, he was everywhere.
I pressed my nose to the collar before I could stop myself.Inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with him.
Then jerked back, horrified at my own reflexes.
What was wrong with me?The man had denied me release, sent me away aching and furious, and here I was huffing his robe like some kind of addict.I shoved the fabric away from my face, but the damage was done.His scent clung to my skin, my hair, the inside of my nostrils.
Where was my dress?
I threw off the covers and crossed to the door I assumed led to a closet.The hardwood floor was cold beneath my bare feet, and I wrapped my arms around myself as I yanked the door open.
And stopped.
My clothes.Rows of them, perfectly organized by color, hanging from padded hangers like they’d been there for years.My jeans.My sweaters.The blue silk blouse I’d bought for the hotel’s charity gala last spring.Even my underwear, folded in a drawer like museum specimens, arranged by color and style in a way I’d never bothered with myself.
I opened the bathroom door.My toiletries lined up on the counter in perfect formation.My shampoo.My moisturizer.The prescription acne wash I’d been using since I was fifteen, the one I kept hidden under the sink because I was embarrassed that I still needed it at twenty.
Someone had found it.Displayed it.
He’d moved my things.
Not some of them.All of them.Every piece of clothing, every personal item, everything that made my hotel apartment mine.Transplanted here without my knowledge.Without my consent.Without even the pretense of asking.
I walked back into the bedroom, my hands shaking.Found my mother’s sheet music on the dresser, the edges worn soft from years of handling.Chopin.Debussy.The Ballade I’d played last night while he watched me with those dark, unreadable eyes.
The sight of it made my throat close.That was mine.Private.The only thing I had left of her besides memories that grew hazier every year.Not something for his people to rifle through while they packed up my life.
A soft knock at the door made me spin around.
