She already had a job. Producing my heir.
“She’s on lockdown until I say otherwise,” I said, pouring my tea.
He nodded and departed quickly.
I took a bite of bread and opened my calendar. Her cycle had been mapped—period, projected ovulation, the window of optimal opportunity. Another twenty-four hours before I reminded her exactly why she resided under my roof.
I messaged Grigori. Told him to bring her brother back to Chernograd.
If she caused any further problems, the boy might prove useful.
For the last week she had been avoiding me.
That would end soon enough.
Chapter 24
Iskra
“What do you mean I can’t leave?”
Radovan’s face was unreadable. Arms crossed, body filling the doorway, expression set to the blankness of a man delivering orders he didn’t make and had no intention of discussing.
“What about the garden?”
“I’ll check,” he said, pulling his phone out.
I stared at him while he typed.
The garden. My one square of outside air, my daily perimeter walk, my pretence of freedom—and now even that required clearance from a man who wasn’t in this house.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, and turned back toward my bedroom.
I had stayed in my room for most of the week. Down for food, occasionally the living room, then back again. The walls of the west wing had become as familiar as the walls of my parents’house—which was to say, a cage I knew the dimensions of.
Having Radovan or Spartak outside my door every minute of every day and night had grown old fast.
Vadim had left me alone since that night at the club. No morning visits. No evening schedule. Just the silence from his end of the floor with an occasional click of his door and the absence of a man who was making a point.
And now I would miss my job interview.
One interview. One small reach toward something that resembled a normal life—a desk, a role, a reason to get dressed that had nothing to do with him or the contract or the function I had been purchased to perform.
Gone.
I fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
The story of my life.
??????
When the knock came at my door I jerked awake to the same ceiling.
“Go away,” I croaked, my voice thick with sleep.
Another knock.
I sat up and unbuttoned my dress suit jacket. I had fallen asleep in my interview clothes.
