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My stupid heart skips a beat.
He wants a repeat of last night. That’s obviously what this is. He was trying to play hard to get and let me walk away, but he couldn't let me leave. Not without having me one last time.
I brace myself to be picked up and ravished on the island. But… nothing happens. Yakov just stands in front of me, his expression as chiseled and unreadable as ever.
“Um, I’m sorry.” I frown. “I don’t know—What is happening right now? Is this like a game or?—”
“You’re in danger.” Yakov shifts in front of the door. “The only place I can protect you is here in my house. So you’re staying. Indefinitely.”
My stupid heart makes up for that one skipped beat. It’s hammering double time now. And for good reason.
Yakov is fucking crazy.
10
LUNA
“Oh. Okay. I’m in danger. Right.”
Nod along with what the crazy man is saying and ease towards the door.
Yakov didn’t seem crazy last night. Not in a scary way, at least. He seemed dangerous and interesting. Sure, he lied about who he was to have dinner with me. But what some people might call crazy, I call flattering.
Now, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t have been better if we’d never met. I would have been stood up for a blind date I didn’t ask for in the first place and then gone home alone, but at least there wouldn’t be a mountain of a man between me and the only exit in sight.
“You don’t believe me,” Yakov says. It isn’t a question. My acting skills must be worse than I thought.
“No,” I admit with a sympathetic smile. “I don’t. I’m sorry. I think you might be a little confused.”
That’s probably why he has so many staff members here. This is some kind of halfway house. They’re his watchers, not his workers.
“Things would be easier if you believed me, but it isn’t necessary. What we discussed last night remains true.” He leans in, voice low. “I want you to stay, so you’ll stay.”
My heart is a hummingbird in my chest. I can’t catch my breath. “I think we should just talk about this. Let’s be logical about the situation, okay?”
He nods. “Okay. I’ll start: you’re in danger. I can keep you safe. Logically, it makes sense that you stay here.”
“That’s not—” I huff out a breath. I have no clue how to talk to a person in the midst of a crisis. Especially when I also feel like a person in the midst of a crisis. “Why am I in danger now if I wasn’t in danger last night? What changed?”
“Nothing. You were in danger last night,” he says. “That’s why I brought you back to my house.”
“No, no. You brought me back because we were on a date. It went well. We came back here to… you know. Classic good date trajectory.”
If nothing else, I need that to be true. If there’s any chance that last night was some elaborate setup for Yakov to get me back to his house, I really will be in danger. I might self-destruct from sheer humiliation.
“We never finished our date. I got a call in the middle of dinner that we weren’t safe. I got you out.”
I run a hand through my greasy hair. “If I was in danger last night, why didn’t you tell me as soon as you got the call?”
I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. The first good date I have in my entire life and the prince turns into a frog when the sun comes up. Go fucking figure.
“Dragging you out would have caused a scene.”
I shake my head. “If I was really in danger, I would have left. You just aren’t telling me why I’m in danger in the first place!”
“Correct. And I won’t.”
I blink at him. “You won’t tell me what’s going on? You expect me to believe you, even though you won’t explain what’s happening?”
