“What?” I urge.
He’s not what?
“No,” he says, suddenly back to business. “If you want to go home, we’ll take you. If not, please, enjoy your time here.”
Part of me screams to order him to take me back to the city, but the sad truth is that there’s nothing there for me.
So instead I turn around and stride into the house, walking through the hallways with their massive ceilings that seem to make my footsteps echo three times as loud, past watching paintings, a suit of armor, the stone staircase. This house is an interesting mixture of modern and medieval, like a time traveler’s lair.
I walk into the kitchen, staring in wonder at it, the obsidian island in the middle, the stove built right into another obsidian counter. The oven opens from a sleek, hidden drawer. The knobs appearing when you need them via a button. I explore all of it, my heart thudding like a song of victory.
All my life, I’ve dreamed of being able to use a kitchen like this. I don’t know what it says about me that, despite the fact I’ve never even had the chance to pursue it properly, my biggest passion is cooking.
But it is, and I can’t change that.
The small kitchen at the orphanage, a few classes in high school, those are what have sustained me through the years.
But this?
This is something else entirely.
I find the giant refrigerator well stocked and set about making myself an omelet, enjoying the simple pleasures of cutting with an ultra-sharp knife, of sitting at the table overlooking the vast garden and closing my eyes to savor the taste of the food. I even enjoy washing the dishes afterward, using the jet-washer to blast them clean.
Then I turn to find Artem watching me from the doorway, his arms folded, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. I wonder if he ever actually smiles, or if he’s incapable, if in his criminal world smiling is simply not allowed.
“Having fun?” he asks.
“Sorry,” I mutter, instinct making me servile, worried that I’ve overstepped the mark even if he said I’m specifically allowed to use the kitchens.
“Sorry?” he says, stalking forward in his sleek suit, dark blue today. He stands close and closes his eyes, inhaling. “Incredible.”
“The food? I doubt there’s any smell left, to be honest, after all the washing.”
He opens his eyes and stares, making me think, for a silly second, that he’s going to lash his hands out and wrap them around me, squeezing onto my hips and then my ass. I can feel his hands squeezing me, massaging me, before lifting me up and placing me on the kitchen island. Then pushing me so that I’m lying on my back and his manhood is there, grinding against me, rubbing until he’s hard and I’m soaked and—
What the heck is the matter with me?
“I never said it was the food,” he growls.
What, then? What the heck is it?
Even closer, and now he’s standing so close to me that if he wanted he could lean down and press his lips against mine. Not that he’d want to do that, of course, but he could, right now …
And then his cell phone buzzes from his jacket pocket and he lets out an annoyed sigh.
“Not tonight, it seems,” he snarls. “You see, Anna, people think the life of a boss is all leisure and enjoyment. People think all you have to do is sit back and let your empire run itself. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The life of a boss is work, work, and more fucking work—if you want your empire to stay standing longer than a day.”
He sighs again.
For the first time, I see a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes. Not that he appears outright vulnerable, exactly, but that he could, if he were not … well, him.
He leaves me there, wondering exactly what just happened.
For the next two days, I don’t catch any sight of Artem, but I feel his presence everywhere I go in this giant house. I feel him watching me as I walk down the hallways, as I spend more time in the kitchen, still waiting for the penny to drop.
I know I’m here for a reason, but every time my mind skirts close to what I think it might be, I hear all the self-doubting voices I’ve heard my whole life.
I remember being the nobody in high school, stalking through the hallways, unseen, mostly friendless. I remember when I first started developing curves, looking at myself in the mirror, turning this way and that to try and convince myself I wasn’t ugly, that I wasn’t that dreaded F-word.
And then I shiver as the feeling of standing under that spotlight in the bikini returns to me, all those staring eyes. Even if they were hidden in darkness, I could feel the sweat pricking my body, sliding over my skin.