“But you didn’t match it fast enough.”
Kolya shrugs. “I suppose not. But you got your prize, I got mine.”
Sylvie. I want to run down there and get right in his face, demand to know where she is, if she’s okay.
But I know I have to stay hidden.
“Perhaps you should’ve graced the auction yourself if you were looking to spend that kind of money,” Gabriel responds.
“Perhaps.” Kolya’s gaze drifts, lazy, assessing. It lands on me.
I freeze.
Those green eyes lock onto mine, something flickering within them. Recognition? Curiosity?
Whatever it is, I don’t like him looking at me. Not at all.
Then he smiles. It’s a faint, knowing smile, a smile laced with amusement.
“And who is this?” he asks.
Gabriel turns and our eyes meet.
There’s nothing in his gaze. No heat. No recognition. No trace of the man who worshiped my body last night and made me say, “I’m yours” while he came inside me.
Just cold, flat indifference, as if he’s regarding one of the decorative vases that line the hallway.
“The help.”
Two words—dismissive and final.
Something cracks in my chest.
“She’s new,” he continues. “Still learning the ropes.” He turns back to me. “Make yourself useful elsewhere. My associate and I have business to discuss.”
I open my mouth, wanting to give him a piece of my mind right then and there, but instead, I force my lips into a hard line, then take a slow, deep breath.
“Of course, Mr. Moretti,” I say, my voice steady, even though my hands are shaking. “My apologies for the interruption.”
With that, I turn and walk back up the stairs, my spine rigid.
I refuse to look back.
But I feel Kolya’s eyes on me the whole way.
I make it to the second-floor hallway before I have to stop and press my palms against the wall, breathing hard.
The help.
He called me the help in front of the man who tried to buy me.
I tell myself it’s just strategy, that Gabriel couldn’t exactly introduce me as the woman he fucked on his desk last night. Itell myself that he’s protecting me, keeping me invisible, making sure Kolya doesn’t look too closely at me.
But it doesn’t feel like protection. It feels like rejection.
I find myself once again thinking about the way he looked at me in his study, the way he touched me, the way he said, “You’re mine now.”
But now, in the cold light of morning, it all feels different, sinister almost. His words don’t feel like a promise or a claim—they feel like him marking his property.
