For me, it's something else that draws me in. This woman has inner strength and a spark of defiance. She's begging to be tamed. I don't want to extinguish her fire but it will answer to me. Only to me.
Although there's a brief flash of panic on her face when I tell her I know everything about her, she quickly locks it awaybehind those gorgeous denim blue eyes. Her ability to compose herself under pressure is impressive.
I've sat opposite titans of industry and hardened criminals who let their emotions bleed out when they're challenged. Not Katya. She recovers almost immediately.
"What do you know about me?" she asks.
No, she doesn't ask. She demands. There's enough tension in her voice for me to detect fear, but this is not a woman who bows down to it. She channels her nervousness into determination.
That's good.
If she's to stand by my side she'll need a backbone of steel. Without it, she'd be eaten alive.
"I know everything."
From her childhood ballet lessons to what she enjoys for breakfast, my investigators have supplied a wealth of information. I know she keeps a battered copy of Anna Karenina in the nightstand by her bed and reads it every winter. She hums tunes from Tchaikovsky's ballets when she thinks nobody's listening.
When her father's bodyguard of fifteen years was gunned down she cried for days. I don't know why I've memorized these things but none of them are pertinent right now.
"So you know about Boris Orlov?"
Moving closer, I take the seat opposite her and spread my arms out along the back of the sofa. She watches me carefully, not like she's wary of a predator, but as a woman assessing her situation, trying to decide how to play it.
That's one more thing to like about her. She weighs her options carefully before acting, though the results aren't always what she hoped.
"I know about Orlov," I confirm. "I also know about his brother, Mikhail. Tell me, what were you hoping to achieve there?"
The merest hint of a grimace curls her deep red lips. Up close, she's more striking than the photographs I obtained suggested.
With dark brown hair slicked back in a ponytail and a tailored black dress, she no doubt intended to present herself as businesslike but her heart-shaped face and enormous eyes make her look young and innocent. She's out of her depth but treading water admirably.
"My father contracted me to marry Sergei Litkov."
I almost shudder at the thought of such a lovely young woman being bound to a fossil like him. Sergei Litkov has to be seventy years old. Shriveled with age, his character is as mean as his thin, pale features.
A lifetime of justified paranoia, knowing assassins lurk around the corner, has twisted his personality into something ugly.
"And that led you to Mikhail Orlov's bed?"
Her tongue pokes out to lick her lips as her eyes dart off to the side. She's trying to decide how much truth to offer me.
"Sergei wanted a virgin bride. I decided not to give him that."
I understand her reasoning, admire it, even. She tried to take her destiny into her own hands. Unfortunately, she didn't account for all possible consequences of her actions.
"What if I want to marry a virgin?"
A frown forms on her face as though it never occurred to her I might be so discerning. Perhaps she thinks my scars make me too desperate to care what sort of woman I marry.
That was a risk I took when I asked Niamh to help me find a suitable bride.
"Do you?" she asks.
I ignore the question, leaving her to wonder whether her sleeping with another man is a dealbreaker for me.
"What happened with Mikhail?"
"My father caught us together." She draws in a fortifying breath. "He shot Mikhail, right between the eyes."
