I swallow and take her elbow. She guides me to the door. I only trip twice en route.
“There’s no way I can walk in there wearing flip flops, is there?” I ask hopefully.
“Over my dead body.”
Suppressing a grimace, I follow her downstairs and to the back of the house where one of the sitting rooms flows into the garden.
“You’ll be dining on the terrace,” she says. “Make sure those heels stay on the paved paths. You’ll sink in the mud.”
She leads me down a stone path that curves around flower beds and under twisting trees. At the end is a wooden terrace nestled against a glistening pond. A fountain glows blue in the center and vibrant green lily pads float on the surface. It matches my dress flawlessly.
“Wow, this is…”
I trail off when I notice Aleks sitting at the table, waiting for me. Seeing him now, I realize I was wrong: the sketch I etched into the wall of my bedroom looks nothing like him. Superficially, it does, but what’s missing is what’s beneath.
The arrogance.
The brutality.
I’m not so sure I can ever put those things down on paper quite right.
“Enjoy dinner,” Yulia says.
“Wait!" I grab for her hand. “You’re not joining us?”
“You’ll be fine,” she says, lowering her voice. “You look amazing. He can’t take his eyes off you.”
I’m not sure that does anything to help my nerves. But I’m left with no choice but to turn to him as Yulia disappears back into the garden.
I walk carefully to the table. Aleks doesn't stand to greet me. He stays seated and fixes me with a hard, intimidating expression.
Immediately, I feel like an idiot. Did I really think a pretty dress might change things? Like he’d turn into a blubbering Mr. Nice Guy at the snap of my fingers?
“Sit,” he orders quietly.
I sink into the seat opposite him and study the beautifully laid table to avoid meeting his eyes.
“Why go through all this trouble for me?” I mumble.
“I was having dinner anyway,” he says. “It wasn’t a problem to include you. But I appreciate you going through all that trouble for me.”
The glow in his eyes makes it clear that he’s checking me out unabashedly. I flush with color, but I still keep my eyes averted. “I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Your mother forced me into this dress. Pretty much literally.”
“Are you often forced into doing things you don’t want to do?”
I grit my teeth. “You should know better than anyone that some people won’t take no for an answer.”
He raises his eyebrows. “I don’t remember you ever saying no to me."
He smiles. It's laced with bad intention.
Despite that, my body hums. I felt it in the airport, too, when he sat next to me at the bar. It's the animal part of me, drawn to him even though I know better.
“Did you feel bad?” I blurt out so suddenly that I surprise even myself.
“For?”
“For deceiving me like you did,” I say, powering ahead despite my increased heart rate. “For pretending like you were interested in me? For sleeping with me under false pretenses?”
His expression doesn’t change. But there's a glint in his eye that drives the air from my lungs.
“If I let pitiful feelings hold me back like that, I’d be a very different man, Olivia.”
15
ALEKS
She looks fucking phenomenal.
The dress is tight around her bust, pressing her cleavage higher. The neckline swoops low, revealing acres of flawless skin.
That all suits me just fine. But I can tell Olivia is self-conscious. She’s nervous to lean in and her movements are stiff. I don’t understand why. The dress simply wisps over her curves, accentuating and highlighting her curves without cheapening them.
The women in my world would cut off a finger to have half of her innocence. But her? She wears it without regard for just how precious it is.
I steeple my fingers and lean in towards her. “If you only learn one thing about me, Olivia, learn this: I take what I want. I don’t waste time thinking about petty consequences. So I took you, and if I left damage in my wake, so be it. The women I fuck disappear from my life soon after. We certainly don’t end up having a conversation over dinner.”
She frowns in dismay. “They disappear from your life? Like, they leave., or…？”
I laugh, but her frown only deepens. “Do you really believe I’d fuck a woman just to kill her after?”
“Am I supposed to know what gets you off?”
This night is supposed to be about extracting whatever information I can about her brother. But for some reason, that feels like an unwanted inconvenience I have to get through.
The questions I’m more interested in asking have a much different purpose.
“You’ve never fucked a stranger before, have you?” I guess.
She blushes, which confirms my suspicions immediately. “I like to have a connection with someone before I sleep with them.”
“Ah, yes. We were rather connected.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You were a glaring exception.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“You had a rule that you broke for me. Surely that makes me special?”
“It wasn’t a rule, I just—” she sighs. “I didn’t do it for you.”
“Oh, it was for you, then?” I suggest with amusement. “Like a treat?”
She glares at me. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop twisting my words. Stop trying to confuse me.”
“I’m just talking here. Don’t be afraid of a little conversation, Olivia.”
“I should have known not to trust you from the beginning,” she hisses. “You were too…”
She trails off. We both know there’s no ending to that sentence that doesn’t bury her further in her own words. That doesn’t betray her own deepest desires that much more.
“Too what?” I press.
“Smooth,” she finishes. “Polished. Practiced.”
“I wasn’t aware that was a bad thing.”
“‘Never trust a man who always knows exactly what to say,’” she murmurs as though she’s talking to herself.
“Who gave you that pearl of wisdom?”
“My dad.” She raises her eyes to mine for the first time all night.
The way she mentions him tells me everything I need to know. They were close. The loss of him still weighs heavily on her. More heavily than I ever suspected.
“In this case, your father was right.”
“He usually was,” she says softly.
I let her soak in the silence. It seems as though she needs the space to breathe, to unclench.
She’s quiet for a while. Then she turns her eyes to the pond and starts talking.
“He had this amazing laugh. Like, booming, you know? The kind of laugh that scared little kids. Even though he loved kids. And he made a mean apple crumble, but he couldn’t cook anything else.”
She smiles to herself at memories only she can see.
“In the evenings, he used to sit at the counter and whittle while I did my homework at the kitchen table. If I asked him for help, he dropped his tools and came over right away. Even though he didn’t know any of the answers. He was the same with Mia and Rob, too. He taught us to love each other fiercely. He told us to have each other’s backs. And we always have. We always will.”