Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 157491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
And then I reach it. The door. The end of the line. My heart thunders, my hand almost bloodless as it curls around the brass doorknob. I close my eyes as it twists, and I push the door open…
Van on another chesterfield sofa, like the ones I’d spotted on the way in.
His arms are spread along the back, and his head is tilted heavenward.
His foot moves on the bloodred Persian carpet, his denim-clad legs spreading wider…to accommodate the woman on her knees between them. To allow me to better see her. Her hair is a dark sheet over a naked back that is narrow though swells to wider hips. She turns as the door creaks, her red-painted lips curled expectantly.
“Come in, darling,” he’d purred, his hand lifting languidly, his fingers curling. “Come and meet the birthday gift I want you to share with me.”
And that was that.
I swallow bile as the door opens noiselessly this time. He wore his hair different then, the stubble on his cheeks less pronounced, the creases around his eyes less distinct. When I open my eyes, the images disappear. The sharp ache in my chest does not.
The sofa is gone, and in its place are four sleek chairs and a glass coffee table. Even the rug is different, though the paneled walls are the same, the huge antique desk and the captain’s chair with the faded cushion. Same as the original fireplace with a vaguely familiar painting hanging above it. A Matisse? The original shutters are folded back from the windows, and it’s there Niko sits. Half perched on a cast iron radiator, the dark night frames him, the Anglepoise desk lamp highlighting the bold strokes of his features.
“Hello, darling.” The old window rattles as he sets a demitasse cup down on the sill, lifting his gaze to me. He’s always been somewhat inscrutable, but now I see that was only the tip of the iceberg.
I close the door behind me, placing my tiny clutch on the console table before stepping farther into the room. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“Were you hoping to catch me unawares?” He nods to a bank of monitors on the wall to my right. My gaze flicks away at what I see there. Something tells me he knew I was coming before I’d even climbed into Griffin’s car. “Or were you expecting to find an excuse to run away again?”
It’s hard, but I ignore his take on what happened fifteen years ago. I ran, yes. I didn’t need nor want an excuse. I loved him, though I never admitted it. The fact that he didn’t follow told me all I needed to know.
I moved back to Scotland immediately, and the rest, as they say, is history.
History that isn’t going to repeat itself today.
“I’m not dressed for running,” I answer, taking a turn around the room on unsteady legs. I refuse to let him see how nervous I am and take care to move in a way that shows my dress to its best advantage. “But I did come for answers.” No matter how painful.
My heart beats erratically as he crosses the room. Wrapping his hand around my upper arm, he slides his thumb under the shoulder strap of my dress. “It looks like you came to be fucked.”
“Do you like it?” Heat blooms low in my belly, our bodies pressed from knee to hip.
“I’d like to tear you out of it.” His voice is low and hoarse, his eyes not so unfathomable now, desire burning there like two bright flames.
“Maybe you’ll get that chance. Or maybe I’ll go downstairs and find some other man to kneel between my legs instead.”
His eyes close, his expression pained. It lasts less than a second. “Time to pay the piper?”
“Time to tell the truth for a change.”
“Truth is relative, milaya.” He slides his hand through my hair, the strands falling from his fingers in shimmering waves.
“It’s what I want to hear.” What I need to hear.
“The truth is rarely satisfying. You won’t tie up all our mysteries in a neat little package.”
“Don’t try to pacify me.”
“I wouldn’t dare. But the truth won’t set you free, darling. Not from me.”
It takes supreme effort to pull away, but I force myself to. Being close to him just muddies my heart and my mind. It makes me feel like I’ll always want to be tied to him. But that can’t be right.
“Tell me, Niko, why did I end up taking tea at the Ritz with a member of a Russian crime syndicate?” My question sounds casual as I stroll to the other side of the room as though my stomach isn’t roiling and my brain isn’t more cortisol than gray matter. “Was it your doing, or was it truly Tom’s?”
He slides his hands into his pockets as he pivots to face me, his answer pointed. Succinct. “That was your doing, darling.”