He's still holding my wrist, his thumb tracing a slow circle over the delicate skin where my pulse beats traitorously fast. The gesture is almost gentle. Almost tender. Which makes it worse. Gentleness from Slava Romanov is like a snake offering to warm your feet—technically possible but most likely fatal.
"Thank you," he says. "For the tie. For your discretion. For anticipating problems before they occur." His thumb presses slightly harder, and the fire he's igniting threatens to burn me up to a crisp. "Good job."
I shiver at those two words. I didn't want him to tell megood job.
I wanted him to call megood girl.
"That's what you pay me for, Mr. Romanov."
This time, my voice is neither sharp nor professional.
"Yes." His eyes drop to my mouth, just for a second, just long enough for me to forget how to breathe. "It is."
Then he releases me. Cold air rushes in where his warmth used to be. And I walk through the gallery door on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.
2
BELLA
"Mr. Romanov,could you turn slightly to your left?" The photographer asks. “Perfect. The light loves you.”
The photographer's flash catches Slava mid-laugh, and I want to throw myself into traffic.
The truth is, Bella Creminelli doesn't exist.
She's a fiction I built from falsified records and forged references, named after a stupid childhood nickname because Luca used to call me a "little Cremini mushroom" thanks to the heinous bowl cut Mom inflicted on me in the third grade.
An entire fake identity just to get close to Slava Romanov.
An obsession that has eaten me up for five long years.
All of it in the pursuit of vengeance, and out of my vow to destroy the man who destroyed my family.
For five years, that obsession has seeped into every part of my being until I can tell you every little thing about him: how he loves a good espresso martini but you won’t ever catchhim drinking one in public, the way his fingers will drum to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake when he’s deep in thought, and his habit of running his thumb across his lips whenever he catches me staring.
And as I watch Slava smile for the cameras like the legitimate businessman I help convince the world that he is, I can’t help admit that he is infuriatingly good at this.
Right now, with his hand draped over Councilman Peters’ shoulder, he looks like a man who's never hurt anyone in his life.
God, I hate him.
I hate the sharp angles of his stupidly handsome face. I hate those sharp cheekbones that can cut glass, his jaw that belongs on a Bernini sculpture, and the dirty blond hair swept back from his forehead like he wandered out of a Renaissance painting.
I hate the small scar bisecting his chin, a tiny imperfection that somehow makes everything else more insufferable. I hate that he's six-foot-three of perfect proportions. I hate the broad chest and muscular arms that his tailored suit can't hide. I hate he's the kind of beautiful that makes my skin prickle with a familiar fantasy I’m not supposed to have, but one that keeps coming back over and over again.
My hand drifts to the necklace at my throat—a seven-pointed star pendant in gold with a diamond winking at its center, and I squeeze it to force me away from my inappropriate fantasy.
Luca gave this necklace to me three weeks before he died. I didn't know then that it would be the last gift I'd ever receive from him. Didn't know that within a month I'd be standing at his funeral, holding my little nephew Anthony’s hand in mine and looking down into his casket.
All while Anthony keeps repeating the words that shred my heart apart over and over again.
“Daddy, pwease wake up.”
Anthony has Luca's eyes and Luca's laugh and Luca's stubborn chin. He is the reason I get up every morning. He is the reason I endure the humiliation of keeping tabs on Slava Romanov's dry cleaning and fixing his ties and pretending I don't notice the parade of women leaving his office on wobbling legs with smeared lipstick and satisfied smiles.
The pendant feels warm from my body heat, and the jagged points cradling the diamond cuts just enough when I squeeze that I can focus on reminding myself of what matters.
Before leaving for the event tonight, Anthony asked me about Luca again.
