Page 116 of Marrying the Savage

And yet here I am.

The corridor outside her room is dark except for the low sconces along the wall. Beyond the windows, the sea is black and restless beneath the cliff, throwing itself again and again at the rocks as if persistence can turn stone into surrender.

I slept through most of the day after the doctor stitched my arm.

My body took what it needed after the warehouse, the blood loss, the old ache in my hand, and the chaos that followed. When I woke, the house was quiet. Reports waited on my desk. Mikhail left a stack of files. Nikolai doubled the men at the gates without being told. Grigori sent a note that said only, Your wife scared my son’s nanny and may have recruited Maksim into rebellion.

I should have gone to the study. Instead, I came here.

I lift my hand to knock, but the door opens before my knuckles touch wood.

Sofia stands in the opening, breathing as if she has run here from the window.

She’s not wearing the green dress from earlier. This one is older. Ivory silk faded to cream, soft around her body, the sleeves loose at her wrists and the neckline lower than she probably realizes. It belongs to this house. I know it the moment I see it, though the recognition reaches me a second too late to stop the quiet strike of memory.

Elena’s.

The silk sits differently on Sofia, warmer, more alive, pulled over breasts fuller than Elena’s ever were, clinging faintly at the waist and hip where Sofia’s body gives the dress a shape it didn’t have before.

For a moment, I say nothing. The past moves through the corridor like cold air. Then Sofia’s fingers tighten on the edge of the door, and memory loses.

She is here.

Alive. Flushed. Watching me with those too-bright eyes as if she has been standing on the other side waiting for the floorboards to betray my approach.

“Were you waiting for me?” I ask.

Her cheeks turn pink immediately. “No.”

“Liar.”

“I was opening the door for air.”

“At midnight.”

“Yes.”

“Facing the hallway.”

She lifts her chin. “The hallway looked stuffy.”

I raise a brow.

She’s breathing too quickly.

I haven’t touched her. Not yet.

That knowledge slides under my skin, hot and deliberate. The fact that her body already remembers mine well enough to react to my presence alone is the sort of thing that can make a man lose patience.

My gaze drops to her mouth. Her lips part.

A mistake. A very dangerous mistake.

“Why are you here?” she asks, stepping backward into the room but keeping her face turned toward me.

I follow her inside. The door closes behind me with a quiet click.

She hears it.