He says it so flat I almost believe him immediately.
A little shiver works down my spine, but I keep my face still. “Good to know.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, then back to my eyes.
“If I tell you to leave, you leave.”
“No.”
His jaw flexes.
I can almost hear the snap of his patience.
“Ayla.”
“No,” I repeat, quieter this time. “You dragged me across an ocean, Maksim. I’m not turning around and running because your family is unpleasant.”
A bitter smile touches his mouth for half a second. It’s not amusement. More like I said something that proved a point he didn’t want proven.
“They’re worse than unpleasant.”
Before I can answer, he gets out.
Cool air hits when my door opens a second later. I step onto the gravel, the wind off the grounds needling through my clothes as I come around the front of the SUV.
Maksim is already at the steps, waiting. Not impatient. Just... still.
I hate stillness in men like him. It usually means violence is deciding what shape it wants.
He doesn’t offer me his hand. Just watches until I reach him, then opens the door himself and ushers me inside with one cold palm at the small of my back.
The heat hits first.
Then the silence.
The foyer is enormous, all marble floors and dark wood and chandeliers dripping crystal from impossibly high ceilings. There’s a curved staircase at the back, sweeping up to a second level like something out of a period film. Portraits line the walls in gold frames of people with hard eyes and expensive clothes, all of them looking like they disapproved of being painted.
The place smells faintly of polish, smoke, and something older underneath. Dust. History. Money that never had to prove itself.
Maksim’s hand stays on my back, guiding me forward, and I realize after three steps that it’s not affection.
It’s containment.
He’s keeping me where he wants me. The thought should piss me off. Instead it makes me more aware of how tense he is. Every inch of him feels wired too tight.
A man appears first.
Dark hair.
Dark eyes.
Older than Maksim by maybe twenty years, maybe more. Hard to tell. Some men go from handsome to cruel so gradually it ages them strangely. He’s sitting in one of the armchairs by the fireplace in the next room, a glass of something amber in one hand, one ankle resting over the opposite knee like he owns the floor beneath all of us.
Maybe he does.
He doesn’t rise when we enter. He just looks at Maksim. Then at me.
Slowly.
