"We'll discuss it now."
His jaw tightens, but he doesn't stop moving. "Fine. Fiancée holds more weight."
"More weight?"
"With the families. With the authorities if it comes to that." His voice is low, meant only for my ears. "A girlfriend is temporary. A fiancée has legal standing. It gives me grounds to keep you close, to make decisions on your behalf if necessary."
"So it's strategic."
"Everything is strategic, Lena." He stops at a door three down from what I assume is his own room, based on the way he glanced at it as we passed. "This is yours."
The distance between our rooms feels deliberate. Close enough to maintain the illusion, far enough to… what? Give me space? Give him deniability?
He opens the door, and I step inside. The bedroom suite is obscene. A massive four-poster bed dominates the space, draped in silk. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the grounds, and there's a sitting area with a velvet sofa and matching chairs. A door on the far wall leads to what I assume is a bathroom.
"It's beautiful," I say, then pause and smile sweetly at him. "For a cage."
His expression doesn't change, but something flickers in those gold eyes. Amusement, maybe. Or approval.
"A cage implies you're trying to escape," he says quietly. "Are you?"
"Would it matter if I were?"
"No." He steps inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click. "But I'd prefer you didn't try. It would complicate things."
I hear him leave, and the door locks behind him with a definitiveclick. I try the handle immediately. It's locked from the outside. My chest tightens. A prisoner, then. Not a guest.
Hours pass. I search the room methodically, unpacking my duffel bag into the empty closet. My few belongings look absurdly small against all that space. I'd brought what I could considering the time I had, so I'd packed just worn jeans, simple shirts, jackets, and underclothes.
A woman brings dinner on a silver tray. I don't touch it. It's the only defiance available to me, so I take it. No matter how stupid and childish this defiance is.
Near midnight, I hear footsteps in the hallway. They stop outside my door. The lock disengages with a softclick.
Aleksandr enters without knocking, and the air shifts. His tie is loosened, the first few buttons of his shirt undone, revealing the hard lines of his chest. He holds a glass of vodka is in his hand, the amber liquid catching the light from the lamp on the nightstand. He fills the doorway with broad shoulders, that dangerous grace and then closes the door quietly behind him.
"You didn't eat," he says. Not a question.
I stand from where I've been sitting on the edge of the bed, suddenly aware of how small the room feels with him in it. "I wasn't hungry."
His gold eyes track down my body and back up to my face. "That's unfortunate."
He closes the door.
34
ALEKSANDR
She stands at the window, her silhouette backlit by moonlight streaming through the glass. Her arms are wrapped around herself like she's trying to hold the pieces together, and I hate myself for making her feel this way. She looks small. Lost. Nothing like the fierce woman who pulled me from the snow and nursed me back to health.
I close the door behind me with a soft click, and she doesn't turn, doesn't acknowledge my presence even though I know she heard me enter.
"You need to eat." I keep my voice neutral, controlled.
"I told you. I'm not hungry." Her reflection in the glass shows me her face. Pale. Exhausted. But still beautiful. Always beautiful.
I move deeper into the room, the vodka warming my throat as I take another drink. "Starving yourself won't change anything."
"Neither will locking me in this room like a prisoner." She finally turns, and the fury in those dark blue eyes bores into me. "But here we are."
