Does he feel like I do?
Because if that’s true, then this whole job just got ten thousand times more complicated.
Not only do I have to pretend I am not attracted to my employer — I have to ignore the fact that he feels the same way about me. Because nothing has actually changed. I still cannot act on this attraction. He is my boss. The Bellamy Group has a no-fraternization clause. If I break it, I lose everything. My job, my completion bonus, my reference, my reputation, my future.
And what if he decides he doesn’t like me one day and fires me on a whim?
And most importantly —most importantly— I cannot do that to Lily.
I cannot be the nanny who is also sleeping with her dad. I cannot blur those lines on a four-year-old who has already lost her mother and is hanging on to me with both small, cool hands. The ethics of the situation are killing me. I would hate myself. I should hate myself for even thinking this way.
I am here to do a job and I am going to do the job to the best of my ability.
Behave, Novak.
Behave.
Lily looks up at me. “You look pretty.”
“Oh, Thank you, sweetie. And you look pretty too.”
She squeezes my hand.
We reach the doorway of the great dining room. An elegantly dressed Krovenian staff member opens the door for us.
I stop breathing.
The room istransformed.
Candles everywhere. Tall ivory tapers running the length of the long table, candelabras on the sideboards, sconces flickering against the stone walls. The huge stone hearth at the far end of the room has a fire crackling low. The ancient table has been set at one end with only three places, close together at the head, the way you would set a table for a small intimate family meal. White linen. Crystal glasses. Silver. A small bouquet of late-summer wildflowers in the middle, soft and unfussy. The House Draven crest carved into the wood-paneled wall behind the head of the table looks down on the whole tableau like a quiet witness. Two formally-liveried servants stand at attention against the sideboards. Madam Petrova hovers near the doorway, perfectly composed, hands folded in front of her, watching everything.
Lily lets out the tiniestohhhhhof wonder.
I echo her, silently.
And then it hits me, with a slow rolling thud. I am going to eat candlelit formal dinners in a medieval vampire hall with a crown prince and his four-year-old daughter every single night for a full year. What the actual hell have I gotten myself into.
And then I see him.
Viktor stands by the fireplace. One huge hand resting on the mantel. He wears dark trousers, a fresh dark shirt, the cuffs rolled to mid-forearm, top button still open. His thick hair is loose tonight, falling around his sharp jaw, slightly damp at the ends like he came straight from a shower.
He looks like the kind of Krovenian humans whisper about in horror stories.
The firelight catches the points of his fangs when his lips part slightly at the sight of his daughter. He looks dangerous, like he could take down a room of armed men without breaking a sweat.
To literally anyone else in the world, he must lookterrifying.
To me, he takes my breath away.
He sees us in the doorway and pushes off the mantel and crosses the room, then bends to one knee in front of Lily. “You look very fine tonight,Lily.”
“I have lip gloss.”
He grins. His eyes flick up to mine. They linger. “Hazel was very kind to let you.” He stands back up and eyes donotleave my face. Then, slowly, deliberately, they drift down over my entire body and back up to my eyes.
Butterflies take flight in my belly.
“You look beautiful.”
