"You've been stalking me for a month."
"Longer than that."
"You just admitted you'd commit murder to keep other men away from me."
"Multiple murders, if necessary."
She picks up her wine glass. Takes a long sip. Sets it down.
"Tell me something, Dmitri Baganov." She leans forward, and I catch a hint of her perfume. I can smell a flower that makes me want to bury my face in her neck and breathe her in until she's all I can smell. "If I'm going to marry a monster... what exactly do I get out of it?"
My smile widens.
There she is.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Vittoria
God, he's beautiful.
I hate that my brain goes there first. Here's a man who just casually promised tomurderanyone else who tries to marry me, and my first coherent thought is about his cheekbones. The sharp cut of his jaw. Those pale eyes that look like winter storms trapped in glass.
Amanda was right. I needed to see him again. Because memory didn't do him justice.
What he said should terrify me. It doesn't. Maybe that makes me broken. Maybe I've been surrounded by violence so long that threats of death roll off me like water. Or maybe, and this is the part that has heat pooling low in my belly, it's because ofhowhe said it.
He wants me. The hunger in his voice when he made that promise wasn't about business or alliances. It was raw.
But he hasn't touched me. Not once tonight. Not even when I walked in wearing this dress that barely qualifies as clothing. Hekissed my hand like we're in some nineteenth-century novel, and then he sat across from me like a gentleman.
A gentleman who just threatened murder over dinner.
Christ, Vittoria. Get it together.
"What happened to James?" I ask, keeping my voice steady. "His sudden 'family emergency' seems conveniently timed."
Dmitri's lips curve. "Rogers was ready to fuck a waitress at his hotel bar. I had someone take photographs."
I blink. "And?"
"I sent them to his fiancée."
"His—" I stop. Process. "James Rogers has a fiancée?"
"Secret one. He planned to marry you for your family connections while keeping her waiting somewhere quiet. A nice apartment in Manhattan. Monthly allowance. The usual arrangement men like him make."
My brothers didn't know. They would have told me if they'd found a hidden fiancée. Which means Dmitri found something they missed.
A laugh bubbles up in my throat. I swallow it down, but barely.
"You seem amused," Dmitri observes.
"I'm imagining James's face when those photos arrived." I reach for my wine glass.
So he eliminated the competition. Not with violence—with information. With strategy.
That's almost worse. That means he's smart.
