Page 23 of His Contract Queen

His eyes say it clearly.Would you like to try that again?

Heat floods my cheeks as humiliation prickles across my skin. I can feel the two lieutenants staring at me from behind him,evaluating me, amused and maybe even judging Aleksandr for putting up with me.

“It’s quite late, Katya. Don’t you think?” he murmurs, voice chiding, almost indulgent.

“Could say the same for you,” I shoot back before I can stop myself. “Where are you even going?”

His head tilts, predatory amusement curling at the edges of his mouth. “Oh? Are you in the business of demanding things from me now, Katya? Our paperwork hasn’t been filed yet, so technically, you’re still only a bride.Perhaps when there is a ring on your finger, we’ll revisit the hierarchy.”

My hands fist at my sides so tightly, my nails bite into my palms. “Do we actually have to wait for the state to give you permission to do me a favor?”

He laughs, the bright bark echoing harshly across the marble floors, bouncing off the high ceilings and doubling the humiliation. “No one in this world gives me permission to do anything,Kotyonok.”

I’m actually going to scream.

This infuriatingly arrogant bastard somehow manages to prod exactly the parts of me I’ve worked the hardest to keep buried. No matter how much I try to reel in my composure, or how many times I remind myself that Imuststay disciplined for the mission, he finds the pressure point effortlessly.

I want to slap that smirk right off his face. I want to claw it off. I want to show him I am not just some pliant object he can bend to his will like the rest of his men, like the rest of this goddamn world.

I force myself forward, closing the distance between us. My slippers whisper across the marble nearly soundlessly. His eyes track me as I move and the closer I get, the more amused he becomes. His eyes dance with true, genuine delight because denying me is easy for him. Because he knows there’s nothing I can do. I am the only one in this house reckless enough to challenge him, and he’s savoring every second of it.

I swallow down my anger, of what little of it I can, at least, and force the next words through clenched teeth. “Please take me to see my father.”

“Absolutely not,” he says with infuriating ease. “That’s not how this works.”

He enjoys this game far more than I thought previously. I see it now.

He enjoys watching me push against the bars of the cage he’s built around me and finding them immovable. He enjoys the resistance. Thedefiance. The futile struggle as I try whatever way I can to escape. I see it in the slight tilt of his head, the way he studies me like a specimen pinned under glass.

His gaze drifts over me with that quiet, proprietary curiosity. Like I’m some prized dove beating my wings bloody against gilded iron, too stubborn to realize the door has been welded shut and was never meant to be opened again once I was placed inside it.

I refuse to let him tower over me unchallenged. If he’s going to cage me, he’s going to have to work for it.

I lift my chin and meet his gaze head-on. “Take me to see my father right now or else I’ll go upstairs, jump off the balcony, andkill myself. That would be such a waste of the good money you paid to buy me, wouldn’t you say?”

The words burst out of me before I fully register them. They aren’t even rational and aren’t even remotely true. I’d never give this smug tyrant the satisfaction of breaking me to the point of self-destruction. He isn’t worth that. Not even to spite him.

But the moment the threat leaves my mouth, the room shifts. His eyes narrow instantly, amusement erased in a blink as though it never existed at all. His expression sharpens into something lethal.

When he speaks again, it’s with devastating calmness. “Donotthreaten me, Katerina.”

“Or what?” I hiss back, stepping closer, planting myself between him and the door.

I know I shouldn’t provoke him. I know it’s dangerous and I’m already one breath away from consequences I’m not prepared to face, but something inside me refuses to bow down like everyone else.

The faint notes of his cologne wrap around me then. It’s woodsy with a musky edge that clings to the air around me. It envelops me as I step closer again, feeling just as overwhelming as the man in front of me.

Up close like this, I see everything. From the flicker of rage shadowing his eyes to the twitch of muscle in his jaw. The barely restrained anger simmering beneath that carefully controlled exterior is startling to see.

How is it thatthisthreat has hit a nerve dead-on? Clearly, whatever he paid for me was a hefty investment. He wouldn’tbe reacting like this if I were some disposable plaything. Under any other circumstance, a woman like me wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Not even for entertainment.

This reaction suggests something else entirely.

His jaw moves as he grinds through whatever words threaten to spill out of him. Whatever he wants to say, he’s holding it back with visible effort.

Why hold anything back with me at all?

For a full, agonizing minute, he doesn’t speak. He just studies me with that cold intensity until the silence grows oppressive enough to make me squirm.